GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 10/8/03)



Filmmaking kin Joel and Ethan Coen dip their toe into the Hollywood mainstream again, teaming up with big producer Brian Grazer for this frantic post-screwball comedy. Last time the Coens danced with the Tinseltown devil was 1994's The Hudsucker Proxy, partially overseen by bearish boor Joel Silver, who delivered the production values while the Coens themselves delivered some priceless moments but a decidedly mixed whole.

Cruelty, which the Coens rewrote from a script that had been kicking around the industry for a bit, pits ruthless but strangely likable (not to mention strangely dim) divorce lawyer George Clooney against gold-digging would-be serial (divorce) settler Catherine Zeta-Jones. He's so impressed with her take-no-prisoners style ("I'm fascinated by that creature," he mutters at one point, and the noun is no accident) that he actually falls into something like love with her.

The Coens are juggling two tricky balls here, trying to create something in the mold of the gleefully cynical and smart comedies of Preston Sturges while at the same time parodying all the dumb-ass devices of the latter-day romantic comedy. It is not well that Not Another Teen Movie actually beat them to the slow-clapping joke, but then again I suppose this picture's aimed at a different demographic. No matter; whenever and wherever they falter here, they've got the fabulous Clooney to fall back on—he's not only game, he's manic. Zeta-Jones is so lovingly shot by cinematographer Robert Deakins that I almost forgot about those Internet-posted pictures of her, um, enjoying a cigarette during a pregnant sunbathe. (Almost, but not quite.) While it's not nearly as beguiling as the Coen's last pic, the uncanny The Man Who Wasn't There, Cruelty is still a brisk hoot.