MasterChugs Theater: 'Intolerable Cruelty'

Intolerable Cruelty, bears all the hallmarks of a romance--a dashing hero, a beautiful heroine, a series of trials. Yet here the hero is a successful divorce lawyer, the heroine is a manipulative gold-digger, the trials take place in a courtroom, and instead of a heart-piercing Cupid armed with arrows, there's a private investigator armed with a video camera.

Opportunity is ample for a divorce lawyer in Beverly Hills, and for Miles Massey (George Clooney), it has meant an insanely successful career. His clients are the rich and (in)famous, and his style toys with the facts to the point that when a television producer's wife comes to him looking for representation, he suggests that it was her husband and not her that was having an affair with the pool man. There's another man in need of Miles' assistance. His name is Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann), and his infidelity is captured on video tape by private investigator Gus Petch (Cedric the Entertainer). Needless to say, his wife Marylin (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is ready to start divorce proceedings, but fate turns to Rex's favor when he hires Miles, while Marylin employs the services of Miles' professional rival Freddy Bender (Richard Jenkins). The evidence is stacked in Marylin's favor, but after a surprise witness testifies that she entered the marriage solely for the monetary benefits from a divorce, she ends up with nothing. Not one to give up easily, Marylin almost immediately becomes engaged to Howard D. Doyle (Billy Bob Thornton), a rich, eccentric oil tycoon who maintains that a prenuptial agreement is unnecessary, even if Marylin insists that he sign one.

Miles is enraptured with the conniving Marylin, dumbstruck by her upcoming nuptials, and yearning to learn her next move. The movie starts off funny if a little lower key than it should be to reach the zany, offbeat heights it strives to achieve. The Rexroth divorce trial scene is a prime example. It's an amusing package, especially upon the entrance of Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy (Jonathan Hadary), but with tighter pacing, it could have been hilarious. Instead, it desires quicker pacing which would speed up the cue pickup, particularly in the judge's repeated motto of "I'll allow it." The dialog shines throughout the movie, and even though two other screenwriters (Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone) were involved, it's apparent that the Coens are responsible for the best bits. Of particular note are a quiet exchange between Miles and his sensitive assistant Wrigley (Paul Adelstein) as a witness gives testimony about her sexually deranged husband and Miles' early discussion with the television producer's wife. Another Coen staple is the presence of unusual supporting characters, and they're here by the boatload. There's the old, sickly owner of the firm who's connected to multiple life-support systems, Gus, who has an obsession for "nailing asses," Doyle, who never shuts up, and an asthmatic assassin named Wheezy Joe.

Of course, all these wacky shenanigans, the most ingenious of which is a tongue-in-cheek pre-nuptial meeting between Marylin, Miles, and her soon-to-be husband, billionaire oil tycoon Howard Doyle (Billy Bob Thornton), are but a mere plot device to distract our potential love birds from getting together. The audience knows in advance that certain films, especially screwball comedies, have a predetermined code, call it the romantic comedy chain of events, that prohibit would-be lovers from seeing their devilish ways long before a film is about to cue the obligatory exit music and roll its credits. After all, inane conflict is arguably what allows screwball comedy to circle round and round from point A to point Z, before conveniently resolving its cinematic dilemma in one fell swoop. This, however, isn't what draws viewers into the Cineplex. It's the in-your-face chemistry between its stars. And George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones certainly have that palpable, come-hither electricity in spades.

In fact, Clooney and Zeta-Jones are so red hot, particularly in a biting scene where Marylin and Miles exchange Shakespearean barbs over a glass of Chateau Margaux, that when they slither on-screen and form two halves of a duplicitous whole, the audience can't help but think they've been transported back to the 30s and 40s, when brisk banter was as much of a sport as it was verbal foreplay. Clooney, the king of jousting, doesn't just play Miles Massey, he embodies him. He does it by dominating Intolerable Cruelty with the same comedic sensibility and stylish panache as Cary Grant. While Zeta-Jones in full Barbara Stanwyck mode infuses her performance as a self-serving gold digger with such an edgy sense of venality that when Marylin appears to be developing a conscience, the audience wonders if she's just pulling another scam.

Dark, offbeat, quirky material has long been a staple in the Coen's work, but here the dynamic duo have given it a commercial boost, taking a well-written script, reworked by the brothers with screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone, and filling it with enough cynical charm to offset its mainstream premise. Chalk it up to good old-fashioned know how, but the Coen brothers have done the impossible. They have made a studio blockbuster without forgetting their indie roots. If you were worried that Intolerable Cruelty would be a weak entry into the Coen Brothers resume, you shouldn't. Though not as good as Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski, it does rank up there with The Hudsucker Proxy or Fargo. This may be Coen blasphemy, but I liked it better than Barton Fink and O Brother, Where Art Thou? Check it out yourself and see if you think it is safe for those Coen boys to direct other people's scripts. Recommended, but not everyone's gonna like this movie, I'm sure.