Movie Review: Intolerable Cruelty
Intolerable Cruelty is the Coen brothers’ latest project. It stars George Clooney again, this time as the successful, handsome and charming sleazy divorce lawyer Miles Massey, whose specialty is the Massey Pre-Nup, the document that virtually assures that rich people will not have to pay their spouse a sweet penny when they get divorced. The Massey Pre-Nup is so tight, they spend a whole semester at Harvard Law School teaching it. Then along comes Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), the absolutely stunning beautiful and equally charming sleazy socialite, who has caught her philandering husband Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann) on video with another woman. Rex hires Miles, Miles wins the case, Rex doesn’t pay Marilyn a cent, Marilyn comes to Miles with her new billionaire oil husband Howard Doyle (Billy Bob Thornton) to sign the Massey Pre-Nup, Doyle eats the Pre-Nup with barbecue sauce to prove his love of Marilyn, Marilyn makes millions in the divorce and Miles falls in love with Marilyn. Oh, and in all this, there was an asthmatic hit man named Wheezy Joe (Irwin Keyes) that the audience seemed to love.
Intolerable Cruelty is a movie about rich people and their money. In other words, there is not much of a story here. There are rich lawyers, rich husbands and rich women who marry rich men for their money. Even Wheezy Joe is influenced by the almighty dollar. The Coen brothers put their unique spin on the story and use their witty dialogue to put the lawyers, the rich people and their money in a number of comical situations which, for the most part, are mildly amusing. There are a few genuinely funny moments and I liked hearing the Simon and Garfunkel music in the movie, but overall Intolerable Cruelty is a barely tolerable movie. It has its moments of tolerability – Clooney’s Massey is the highlight of the movie and is probably the only likeable character in the entire movie – and only barely. And Catherine Zeta-Jones is so beautiful that I could see why a rich man would eat a pre-nuptial agreement for her sake.
For the most part, however, I found the characters in the movie so unlikable and their motives so greedy that I had a really hard time staying interested in the movie. Sure there is the witty Coen dialogue (although I don’t understand why the line “You fascinate me” is so funny, especially since it is in every single trailer and television commercial and by the time it is shown in the movie it shouldn’t be nearly as funny as it could have been – yet people still laughed hysterically). Sure there are unique characters – Donovan Donaly (Geoffrey Rush) is a funny rich guy; Howard Doyle (Billy Bob) is a funny, annoying rich guy; and I am sure fans of the Coen brothers will be talking about Wheezy Joe for years.
Despite some good moments and a few genuine laughs, Intolerable Cruelty did nothing to make me more of a fan of the Coen brothers. I have always been lukewarm about their movies. I have seen a few of their movies, have had some good laughs but have never had an urge to watch them more than once. After seeing Intolerable Cruelty, I doubt I will ever go out of my way to see this movie again. Before I walked out of the theatre, Intolerable Cruelty was already a distant memory. The only thing that I really got from this movie is that it is better not to be rich. But if you are rich, even if you are an wrinkled old man with a shriveled up penis, you can still get women who look like Catherine Zeta-Jones, which I suppose if you look at Michael Douglas, is a lesson that holds a lot more truth than you may think. (5 out of 10)
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