Ethan and Joel Coen have two kinds of movies that they make. They have brilliant, well considered, monuments to the art of film making (No Country For Old Men, Fargo, Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Raising Arizona). Then the self satisfying, inconsequential flicks they make in between (The Big Lebowski, O'Brother Where Art Thou?, The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Hudsucker Proxy). This is a part of the second group.

The Coen Brothers have always had seriously problems resolving their stories. The more frivolous their movie, the worse this flaw in exposed. If you watch their works you will find brilliant characterizations in the first half of the film. You will be introduced to fascinating, quirky characters who dazzle with clever dialog. The issue comes when the mechanics of the central conflict are put to work. The Coens always fumble in this regard and this leads their well crafted characters to have nothing to do in the final half of the stories. Like we have seen in The Hudsucker Proxy, The Ladykillers, The Big Lebowski and Intolerable Cruelty, the last forth of this film is patched together in a flurry of plot contraptions in order to brings things to a messy close. This lack of follow through makes for a very disappointing experience. The Coen's set a nice table but their meal is wanting.

The film centers around a collection of misfits from various walks of life. Osborne Cox (John Malkovich,) a surly CIA analyst with a drinking problem, decides to write his memoirs following a demotion at the agency. His bitter wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is sleeping with Treasury agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). Pfarrer, who is also married, is likewise cheating on his wife and Katie by meeting single women through Internet dating services. This is how he is introduced to Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) a fitness gym employee. Linda and her co-worker Chad (Brad Pitt) discover Osborne Cox's memoir files on a misplaced CD, left in the gym by Katie's divorce attorney's secretary. The pair decide to blackmail Osborne Cox so Linda can afford to get multiple plastic surgeries so she can be more attractive, which she doesn't have to do since her boss Ted (Richard Jenkins), a former priest, is in love with her.

Phew.

What you may notice is that there is a lot of famous names but not a lot of sense coming out of that previous paragraph. That's what you get with the film. There's plenty of familiar faces but nothing worth remembering. Everyone gives a lively performance (only the Coens pull good performances out of Clooney,) but the convoluted plot mixed with the lack of a compelling conflict results in the film not being worth the effort. You can tell they've hit narrative wall in the second half because the story shifts from clever dialog and upbeat, whimsical plotting to cursing, deviant sexual references and abrupt, hardcore violence. The introduction of low material for no real purpose is always a sign that the writer is struggling to force their way past script issues. Often they are the narrative equivalent to someone shoving something aside an yelling "screw it!" Which, ironically, is what you'll probably say half way through this movie.



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