Saw it last night. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s a great example of what the Coens do best (as described by someone here once before)–a thinking man’s popcorn movie.
My favorite exchange was J.K. Simmons and his lackey at the end (paraphrased):
“So what have we learned?”
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“I guess we learned not to do it again.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so.”
“Damned if I can say what we did.”
The movie was definitely not what I expected from the trailer, but I loved it anyway. In fact, it has grown on me more now that I think about it. My favorite line is the one that ends the movie. Go see it, I can’t wait to see it again myself.
Oh yeah, that one is good too. I also liked the scenes with the Russians.
One of the most interesting moments in the theatre I was in…
was when George Clooney shoots Brad Pitt (I’m horrible with character names). There was about three seconds of stunned silence in the theatre the it erupted with laughter. It really was a heck of a reaction.
I’m a huge Coen fan, and I agree that it’s not instant masterpiece or cult hit (maybe in time it’ll earn some cultishness), like Lebowski or Fargo, but more in the caliber of The Lady Killers had The Lady Killers worked on all levels.
I howled with laughter pretty consistently throughout the film, and loved that end scene.
So, my current ranking of Coen films from fantastic to pretty good are:
Comedy:
The Big Lebowski
Raising Arizona
Fargo
Burn After Reading
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Hudsucker Proxy
The Lady Killers
Intolerable Cruelty
Serious:
Miller’s Crossing
Old Country For Old Men
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Barton Fink (Hard to say – comedy, or tragedy?)
Blood Simple
Wow, that’s hard to rank, because it really could change depending on what mood I’m in. Do they really have a stinker?
Yeh, that should be No Country for Old Men. :smack:
Ebert’s review. He liked it overall. The wife and I look forward to it.
Excerpt: “This is not a great Coen brothers’ film. Nor is it one of their bewildering excursions off the deep end. It’s funny, sometimes delightful, sometimes a little sad, with dialogue that sounds perfectly logical until you listen a little more carefully and realize all of these people are mad. The movie is only 96 minutes long. That’s long enough for a movie, but this time, I dunno, I thought the end felt like it arrived a little arbitrarily. I must be wrong, because I can’t figure out what could have followed next. Not even the device in the basement would have been around for another chapter.”
He’s right about the ending. It feels like it’s over kind of abruptly, but when you think about it, there really aren’t any loose ends.
The beginning is a little slow, but overall I found it to be amusing and entertaining with a few laugh out loud parts and interesting characters. It’s basically a comedy of errors. A nice way to pass the time, but ultimately forgettable.
Interesting movie…not what I expected from the trailers. I really enjoyed it.
I think David Bianculli described it (and Coen movies in general) as a story where every character is driven entirely by their own self-interest. And boy did these characters have a tangled web of self-interests! I haven’t jumped out of my seat at a movie for quite a while, but the Osbourne/Ted incident in the driveway really caught me off guard.
I would argue that there are a couple of characters who are motivated by a desire to help someone other than themselves. The irony is that they both get killed.
I saw it last night. I agree that the beginning is fairly slow but once the movie picks up it’s really good. Brad Pitt and J.K. Simmons steal the show in my opinion. Tilda Swinton’s character was a dud, though. I feel like there were parts when she was on screen that the intent was comedy, but nothing she did or said I found funny at all.
I like how during that scene:
We had been led to believe that the CIA documents were actually something important, but when JK Simmons finds out that Malkovich is only security level 3, he almost has a ‘well who really cares then’ attitude.
Wow, really? I assumed from the moment it was found (“it was on the floor”) that the “spy shit” was mundane financial stuff Swinton had gotten from Cox’s computer. I didn’t think it was his memoirs or anything even more sensitive. I thought that was confirmed when the lawyer asked the secretary to bring in the file, and she looked in her Hardbodies gym bag and the CD-ROM was gone. I found it both appalling and amusing how these characters were going nuts and risking life without parole in a federal prison for something that was so trivial that, when the secretary found it gone, she just casually said “I’ll burn another copy from the computer.”
Agree on that! Simmons is a gem. It’s great to see him in a Coen film.
[spoiler]There was more than the finacial records, though. It also contained Cox’s memoir…not that that was particularly valuable, but the audience had reason to wonder, at least, if he had revealed anything particularly sensitive in it.
As it turns out, he’d had a fairly inconsequential classification level anyway, but the audience doesn’t know that until the first scene with Simmons.[/spoiler]
I actually saw this movie again today, and I think it got slightly better the second time through. You know the story is going nowhere, so you can just enjoy individual scenes and characters as they are. I found Clooney’s performance even more endearing, in his shifty way, the second time around.
The J.K. Simmons character is still the best, though. I’d love to see a movie just about him.
Yeah, I guess you’re right. I didn’t realize the memoirs were on it too. I assumed less than the Coens intended then.
I’m not surprised. I want to see it again too. I’m with Jeeves. It’s grown on me even more the more I think about it.
I had said…
One of the things I wondered, letting “real life” intrude, is if
someone tried to sell information to the Russians or Chinese, couldn’t they be prosecuted for spying and considered a traitor, even if the information is worthless? Those thoughts actually made the end, when Simmons agreed to pay for the plastic surgery, even funnier.
Hudsucker Proxy is great! You gotta see it.
I enjoyed it. There were many moments of sheer surprise followed by the theatre giggling (not laughing, giggling, even the men) - lots of intakes of breath followed by scattered titters. I found myself laughing more than most.
There was a guy in our theatre who said, loudly and in a confused voice, “What the fuck?!” at the end of the movie. Everyone laughed - I think that’s how most people were feeling.
I even hate, hate, hate John Malkovich but I tolerated him in this one. George Clooney was brilliant, Brad Pitt hysterical, really no weak points in the casting at all. If you like offbeat semi-comedy movies, watch it.
I think I need to see this again. I thought the twisted up nature of everyone’s plot to “take care of #1” was good, but developed rather slowly in spite of the brevity of the film. As I started to realize how absurd the plot was, I got a real laugh out of it. I really loved McDorman’s line:
“Dribble!? You’re calling it dribble?”
And yeah, the scene between the two CIA guys was surreal and hilarious. Could have used more of that.
For me the whole movie played as one long elaborate joke set-up for the final punchline. Not a bad thing, but I really expected a rim-shot.
I got a giggle out of all the ‘insider’ nonsense:
[spoiler]*Frances McDormand’s character delivering all the lines about her physical flaws. Lines written by her husband and brother-in-law that could charitably be about her own real life physical flaws.
*George Clooney having an affair with Tilda Swinton - they were enemies in Michael Clayton.
*Geoger Clooney, worlds most eligible bachelor and sexiest man alive, playing a cheesy sex addict philanderer.
*George Clooney killing his real life buddy and co-star of the Ocean’s series, Brad Pitt.
*Brad Pitt playing off his ever youthful sexy guy persona by being essentially a overgrown kid, who actually came off as very unsexy.[/spoiler]
I just saw this yesterday. It’s really odd, actually, because if you asked me whether or not I liked the movie, I’d probably tell you no. Yet, I was laughing (giggling actually - but in a manly way) for a solid 80% of the film. Generally I enjoy ridiculous-character-based-serious-plot-goes-horribly-awry films but must admit to having missed most of the Coens’ movies.
Overall I found the dialogue hilarious in its realism - it sounds a lot like real people talking to each other, rather than most movies in which every punchline has an elaborate and conversationally improbable run-up. Characters stammer, pause, get “oh shit the fucking russians” faces and do it all perfectly; the star-studded cast probably had a lot to do with it.
I agree that the closing conversation makes the film and that most of the movie is a buildup to the last few lines.
Ditto on the few seconds of shocked silence followed by nervous laughter when Pitt’s character gets his head blown off. Very graphic, very unexpected. I think I went “what the fuck…?” out loud a few times.
Mixed feelings about:
the gym manager being hacked to death with a hatchet by an enraged Malkovich. I understand the black comedic aspect of the only two altruistic characters dying, and that the Coen brothers love to blend the lighthearted and heavy at the same time. It just seemed very violent and abrupt to me - which is probably the point, but not particularly funny. I think what’s most disturbing about it is the way the manager tries to defend himself as Malkovich chops away at his hands, arms, face… I can see a real axe murder looking very similar.
Left the film a bit 