Starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, and Holly Hunter
Directed by Joel Coen (and an uncredited Ethan Coen)
Directed by Joel Coen (and an uncredited Ethan Coen)
If only films could be based solely on looks/cinematography, movies like O Brother, Where Art Thou? would take a place in my favorite movies of all time. Unfortunately, they don't, and this Coen Brothers effort falls a tad short for me.
Loosely based on Homer's The Odyssey (which I know I've read at some point in time), the flick follows three hickish guys who have just escaped from a chain gang and are on a mission to find a secret treasure (sounds corny, but it's not as bad as that one sentence makes it sound). My biggest issue with the film, though, is that the story is essentially a series of small set pieces with quirky side characters simply connected by these three escapees coming across them. Parts of the film are great -- the scene with Michael Badalucco's Baby Face Nelson, the Ku Klux Klan scene -- but they don't add up to a super whole for me.
George Clooney as the "ringleader" of the on-the-lam criminals always throws me for a loop. Try as I might, I often have a very difficult time differentiating him from his real-life movie star persona and the characters he plays in his films -- I feel like I'm watching Clooney rather than a character (same goes for Julia Roberts and John Travolta most of the time). It's not that Clooney disappoints here (or really disappoints in any film), but I still never get the feeling that I'm watching a character. Turturro and Blake Nelson are each fine, but didn't wow me. I was actually pretty impressed with Holly Hunter's minimal role (and was equally unimpressed by an over-the-top John Goodman).
Still, there are laughs to be had here. And, like I said above, the film really looks spectacular. The sepia-colored tones tempered with strong use of yellows provided a palette that was certainly visually appealing and one that I imagine would look great on the big screen. I just wish there was a little more cohesiveness to the story, rather than just a series of segments strung together.
Loosely based on Homer's The Odyssey (which I know I've read at some point in time), the flick follows three hickish guys who have just escaped from a chain gang and are on a mission to find a secret treasure (sounds corny, but it's not as bad as that one sentence makes it sound). My biggest issue with the film, though, is that the story is essentially a series of small set pieces with quirky side characters simply connected by these three escapees coming across them. Parts of the film are great -- the scene with Michael Badalucco's Baby Face Nelson, the Ku Klux Klan scene -- but they don't add up to a super whole for me.
George Clooney as the "ringleader" of the on-the-lam criminals always throws me for a loop. Try as I might, I often have a very difficult time differentiating him from his real-life movie star persona and the characters he plays in his films -- I feel like I'm watching Clooney rather than a character (same goes for Julia Roberts and John Travolta most of the time). It's not that Clooney disappoints here (or really disappoints in any film), but I still never get the feeling that I'm watching a character. Turturro and Blake Nelson are each fine, but didn't wow me. I was actually pretty impressed with Holly Hunter's minimal role (and was equally unimpressed by an over-the-top John Goodman).
Still, there are laughs to be had here. And, like I said above, the film really looks spectacular. The sepia-colored tones tempered with strong use of yellows provided a palette that was certainly visually appealing and one that I imagine would look great on the big screen. I just wish there was a little more cohesiveness to the story, rather than just a series of segments strung together.
The RyMickey Rating: C
Barry Lyndon disagrees with your first sentence.
ReplyDeleteThough it's not my favorite movie of all time, the more I think about it the more I think about it pleasantly.
How can you have beef with George Clooney?
ReplyDelete