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O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Starring: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Charles Durning.
While most film-makers stick to the routine love story or thriller and offer very little new to either genre, Joel and Ethan Coen have always delivered the good by lifting from the best, and then giving their unique spin to things.
Their last couple of films, Fargo (1996) and The Big Lebowski (1998) were unmissable gems that received much deserved praise from the critics and public alike.
The latest may not be in the same class but is certainly a lot of fun.
It also proves that this is the year for George Clooney, this being the third of his most intriguing films, after The Perfect Storm and Three Kings.
This movie features regular players John Turturro and John Goodman mixed in with all manner of bizarre goings on.
It also marks a wonderful return to form for Holly Hunter who has yet to give a bad performance and was sublime in the Coen's 1986 classic, Raising Arizona.
The title was inspired by a joke in Preston Sturges' comedy Sullivan's Travels. I must confess, I've never seen the film but it's only a matter of time. Hollywood and film fans clearly love this movie and after Steve Martin mentioned it in Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon (1992), it's one of those on the must see movie list.
Part musical, comedy and fantasy, it is set in Depression-era Deep South and follows clever dick Everett (Clooney) a man who is more concerned about his hair than anything else, Pete (Turturro) and none-too-bright Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) - a band of convicts who escape from a chain gang to find hidden treasure.
Naturally with the Coens' movies, things are never that easy. For the movie is inspired by Homer's 'Odyssey' and the lads bump into all sorts of oddballs on their journey, including a one-eyed bible salesman (Goodman) and a campaigning mayoral candidate (Charles Durning). With some excellent bluegrass music, including a wonderful track by Clooney and The Soggy Bottom Boys, this is one of the year's most original movies that seems to have arrived fully formed into the world.
Most movies are rather obviously the work of special effects crews and a team of writers but this has a strange simplicity. The Coen's have a knack of making their films look effortless, but you know that behind the scenes, they must have been burning the midnight oil to get every element right.
A special nod should also go to Roger Deakins for his washed out photography.
It gives OBWAT that period feel while costume designers and set crew must have had a field day recreating an era seen all too rarely on the big screen.
