Intolerable Cruelty, DVD Review

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Miles Massey (George Clooney) is a successful divorce lawyer who’s famous for creating the Massey pre-nup, an unbreakable Pre-Nuptial marriage contract. He gets a new client Rex Rexroth (Edward Hermann), who’s been caught on camera with a young lady literally with his pants down by private investigator Gus Petch (Cedric The Entertainer). Massey successfully fights the case against Mrs Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and she ends up leaving the marriage with absolutely nothing.

Several months down the line Miles and Marylin meet again, however this time she wants to hire him to apparently create a pre-nup for her to marry new husband, oil millionaire Howard Doyle (Billy Bob Thornton). Miles finds himself wondering if she’s the money grabber he thought she was and ends up falling for her himself. He must have her himself, but ultimately can he trust her?

Review

It was only when I started this review that I realised, even though I am a huge Coen brothers fan, I’ve only ever done one very brief review of one of their films. Even though I have every film they’ve created on DVD, I’ve only ever reviewed The Big Lebowski, a situation I will do my best to resolve. In case you don’t really know who the Coen Brothers are, they are Joel and Ethen Coen, a Writer / Producer / Director team responsible for such diverse (and great) films as Raising Arizona, Millers Crossing, Fargo, Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou.

Although these films are very diverse in terms of plot, they all share a certain dark comedic style that the Coen’s bring to their filmmaking. Intolerable Cruelty does seem at first to be a change of direction for them. It’s certainly the most mainstream film they’ve ever created and could (at least on paper) be classed as a romantic comedy. It’s also as far as I’m aware the first film they’ve made from someone else’s screenplay.

All this did lead me to have some trepidation about the film before watching it; I was really concerned that the more mainstream nature of the film would remove that magic Coen’s spark. Now I’ve watched it though, I understand why it’s received such mixed opinions in both reviews and discussions with friends / cinema goers. I know of several people that went to the cinema expecting a real chick-flick with Clooney and Zeta-Jones and came away very disappointed. I’m not surprised as if anything this is an anti-chick flick.

The genius of the Coens is present throughout; they take all the elements of a romantic comedy and turn them on their head. The two lead roles by all rights should be instantly dislikeable characters. Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a heartless man-eater who uses her looks to marry and divorce her way into Riches. Miles Massey (George Clooney) is a ruthless divorce lawyer who will happily see someone out on the streets in order to win his case, he has no interest in fair, he just has to win. We have a stereotyped support character in Gus Petch (Cedric the Entertainer), who should really grate on your nerves with his continuous catch phrase of “I’m gonna nail yo ass”.

I could go on and discuss each of the over the top supporting characters, but the point I’m making is that everything here’s looks and plays like a cheesy romantic comedy but is clearly taking the mickey from beginning to end. Yes the end is suitably romantic, but the journey there is pure Coen’s through and through. After all how many romantic comedies would feature a man blowing his head off when he mistakes a gun for an asthma pump?

So I’m not surprised that the film alienated a lot of viewers who were expecting something very mainstream. What I didn’t expect or quite understand is the backlash it also received from many Coen’s fans, while it’s certainly not their best film, I think it definitely has a place in any fans collection.

No review of this film would be complete without mentioning the superb casting. Until “O Brother”, I’d never really rated George Clooney as an actor. The films he starred in didn’t really appeal to me and I go the impression that he was trading on looks rather than acting ability. However I have to eat some humble pie now and admit that he really is great in this film, I can’t really think of anyone else who could play the role better. Catherine Zeta-Jones, is also great here, there’s a really energy between the two characters from the moment they meet right through to the closing scenes. There’s also a great supporting cast, as well as Cedric The Entertainer whom I’ve already mentioned, there’s an almost cruelly underused Geoffrey Rush and a superbly over the top Billy Bob Thornton.

Video / Audio

The film is presented in a 1.85:1 Anamorphic widescreen print of very good quality. The colour palette is very rich and vibrant, almost overly rich at times (I think this was intentional). There were no visible film flaws and I didn’t notice any digital problems at any point. Given the slick and well polished style of filming its good to see it given such a solid DVD presentation.

Although probably overkill for this kind of film, the disc has both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS audio tracks in English. The disk is very much front focused with the rear channels barely used for anything more than ambient noise, there’s also very subtle use of the low frequency channel. The DTS tracks seemed slightly better to my ears although with the style of film there’s very little in it. There are certainly no problems with either track, with clear and sharp dialogue and no audio glitches that I noticed.

Extra Features

This section shouldn’t take too long as extras are pretty thin on the ground. A Look Inside Intolerable Cruelty is a 10 minute behind the scenes featurette, it’s not too bad it does at least feature interview clips with the Coen Brothers. It does however fall into the usual trap of everyone just saying how great everyone else was to work with. It’s also woefully short with its 10-minute run time. The Wardrobe is of a similar vein but is obviously focuses on the film wardrobe, it’s also very short at only 5 minutes long.

Finally we have a selection of completely unfunny outtakes, this section also contains a Rex Rexroth home video that is basically 3 minutes of black and white train footage. And that is it, a very light selection of extras I think you’ll agree.

One other thing I want to mention is that when you load the disk there is a short skip-able appeal at the beginning presented by Robbie Williams. The appeal is for UNICEF and it’s about child traffic-ing worldwide. While I appreciate that this is a very worthy cause, I’m not sure if the beginning of a DVD is an appropriate place to start putting charity appeals.

Overall

It’s difficult to know whether or not to recommend Intolerable Cruelty as it’s really going to be one of those love it or hate it films. If you’re looking for a mainstream romantic comedy then you’re not really going to find it here. If you’re a Coen’s fan then definitely go for it, the comedy is not as obvious as in some other Coen’s releases but it’s still there, you just need to look a little deeper.

The DVD itself while grossly short on extra features certainly looks and sounds good enough although I think the price tag of £19.99 is perhaps a little much for an almost bare bones release.

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