Homer would not be amused

'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' an oddball Odyssey

By Paul Tatara
CNN.com Reviewer

(CNN) -- Only Joel and Ethan Coen would try to adapt Homer's "The Odyssey" into an escaped convict movie that's more or less an omnibus of sweaty hayseeds running, falling down and slapping each other with their hats. But that's the whole point of their new movie, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," which stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson as the rattled escapees. "O, Brother" (an accurate abbreviation) ranks with the Coens' most frantic "We don't give a damn" hootenannies.

Pitched somewhere between "Barton Fink"'s (1991) faux social commentary and "Raising Arizona's" (1987) hilarious redneck ranting, it's one of the Coens' "and then" movies.

The construction isn't really based on narrative concerns, although it pretends to be. It's more like a series of nutty situations that the brothers wanted to film, with the concept of "and then" serving as connective tissue. Lesser directors than these guys have used this ploy in the past: It's called "a road movie."

The period of the late 1930s is elegantly established, then the nominal heroes escape from their torment. Then they meet a Robert Johnson-like blues guitar player (Chris Thomas King), and then they meet Baby Face Nelson (Michael Badalucco), and then they hear the siren song of some beautiful Southern women, and then they meet a one-eyed Bible salesman (John Goodman), and then the governor (Charles Durning) is after them, and then they stumble into a KKK rally, and then, and then, and then

And then the movie's over, and you wonder why people who are this wildly talented would bother with something that's pretty funny, but inherently useless.

Clooney plays Ulysses Everett McGill, a loquacious con man who miraculously manages to scamper away from a chain gang. Out of necessity, he also brings along the two slobbering rubes he's been chained to, Pete (Turturro) and Delmore (Nelson). Everett quite accurately describes his unwanted cohorts as "dumb as a bag of hammers."

VIDEO Movie trailer for 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   MORE REVIEWS Van Wilder High Crimes Big Trouble Panic Room Blade II Ice Age Showtime Time Machine We Were Soldiers Queen of the Damned Dragonfly Iris John Q Big Fat Liar Collateral Damage Monster's Ball Slackers Birthday Girl Monte Cristo Mothman Orange County Charlotte Gray I Am Sam Gosford Park Black Hawk Down Ali Kate & Leopold Shipping News Jimmy Neutron Joe Somebody Beautiful Mind The Majestic The Lord of the Rings Lantana The Royal Tenenbaums Vanilla Sky No Man's Land Affair of the Necklace Enemy Lines In the Bedroom Spy Game Sidewalks Harry Potter Shallow Hal Man Who Wasn't There Heist Amelie Focus Domestic Disturbance Tape Monsters, Inc. Life As A House My First Mister K-Pax From Hell Riding in Cars Last Castle Mulholland Drive Bandits Serendipity Joy Ride Training Day Don't Say a Word Zoolander Hearts in Atlantis Glitter Liam The Glass House Hardball The Musketeer Rock Star O Bubble Boy Jade Scorpion Corelli's Mandolin Apocalypse Redux Now American Pie 2 The Others Osmosis Jones Ghost World Rush Hour 2 Jackpot Planet of the Apes America's Sweethearts Jurassic Park III Legally Blonde The Score SongCatcher Cats and Dogs Scary Movie 2 crazy/beautiful A.I. The Fast and the Furious Dr. Dolittle 2 Atlantis Tomb Raider Swordfish Evolution Worst That Could Happen? Pearl Harbor Angel Eyes Shrek Calle 54 A Knight's Tale Mummy Returns About Adam One Night at McCool's Town and Country The Claim Freddy Got Fingered Bridget Jones's Diary Joe Dirt Along Came a Spider Blow Tailor of Panama Someone Like You Heartbreakers Say It Isn't So Enemy at the Gates The Dish Blow Dry 15 Minutes The Caveman's Valentine The Mexican 3000 Miles to Graceland Monkeybone Sweet November Hannibal Shadow of the Vampire The Gift Snatch Chunhyang Finding Forrester O Brother, Where Art Thou Thirteen Days Before Night Falls Vatel The House of Mirth Traffic Malena An Everlasting Piece All the Pretty Horses Miss Congeniality The Family Man Cast Away Chocolat What Women Want Emperor's New Groove Crouching Tiger,  Hidden Dragon Proof of Life Vertical Limit Dungeons & Dragons Unbreakable Quills 102 Dalmatians Just Looking What's Cooking The 6th Day The Grinch Bounce Boesman and Lena A Room for Romeo Brass You Can Count on Me Men of Honor Red Planet Little Nicky Wonder Boys Legend of Bagger Vance Charlie's Angels George Washington Lucky Numbers Blair Witch 2 The Yards Pay It Forward Bedazzled Lost Souls The Contender Billy Elliot Dr. T and the Women Requiem for a Dream Meet the Parents CyberWorld 3D The Broken Hearts Club Girlfight Best in Show Beautiful Remember the Titans Into the Arms of Strangers Under Suspicion Woman on Top Dancer in the Dark Crime and Punishment in Suburbia Duets The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack Bait Almost Famous 'Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God ...Be Back by Five' The Watcher Nurse Betty Whipped Love and Sex Bring It On The Crew Art of War The Cell Original Kings Of Comedy Autumn in New York Tao of Steve Cecil B. Demented The Replacements Wonderland New Waterford Girl Hollow Man Space Cowboys Coyote Ugly Criminal Lovers Saving Grace Nutty Professor II What Lies Beneath Loser The Wisdom of Crocodiles Chuck & Buck X-Men But I'm a Cheerleader Blood Simple Scary Movie Disney's The Kid Trixie Rocky and Bullwinkle Sunshine The Perfect Storm The Patriot Me, Myself & Irene Chicken Run Boys and Girls Shaft Titan A.E. American Pimp Gone in 60 Seconds Passion of Mind Big Momma's House Mission: Impossible 2 Small Time Crooks East Is East Dinosaur Center Stage Battlefield Earth The Big Kahuna Virgin Suicides Gladiator Me Myself I Time Code Where the Heart Is Frequency 28 Days U-571 Joe Gould's Secret American Psycho Keeping the Faith Here on Earth Rules of Engagement Return to Me Romeo Must Die The Road to El Dorado The Ninth Gate Mifune Waking the Dead Beyond the Mat Erin Brockovich You be the critic! Recommend a movie on our message board

But he's no rocket scientist himself, regardless of his propensity for six-syllable words. This is a common Coen brothers dialogue trick, one that works more often than it fails. Just like the characters in "Raising Arizona," these guys are beyond idiotic, but still speak as if they read Plato in the outhouse and have a thesaurus tattooed on the underside of their eyelids.

The Coens proudly admit they've never read "The Odyssey," so you won't have any trouble with the movie if you're in the same boat. Everyone knows that it's a sprawling journey of adventure and self-discovery. "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" is peppered with scenes inspired by Homer's tale, with Everett supposedly pursuing a pot of gold at the end of the journey. The best approach is simply to sit back and wait for the knockout punch lines and sight gags.

This may be mid-level Coen brothers, but that still makes it funnier than some of the year's most highly praised comedies. Clooney gets off the best lines, even though he's the wrong actor for the role. He certainly looks the part. Everett is a would-be suave Clark Gable type who's obsessed with his hair.

There are several classic Coen brothers moments that center around Everett's loyalty to Dapper Dan pomade. (He actually resembles the guy on the can.) At one point, Everett considers sneaking up behind the posse that's been sent to retrieve him because he wants to get his pomade out of the car before he takes off running again. He also wears a hair net while he sleeps, and immediately voices concern for his coif when he's shaken awake.

The trouble with Clooney is that he's obviously an intelligent actor pretending to be very, very stupid. Nicolas Cage always seems close to moronic, so it's not much of a stretch to accept him falling into ill-advised, Coen-style shenanigans.

It should be pointed out, though, that Clooney, more than any other actor on the scene today, knows how to pick a director. He's only made a handful of films, but he's already worked with David O. Russell ("Three Kings," 1999), the Coens and Steven Soderbergh ("Out of Sight," 1998, and the yet-to-be-released "Ocean's Eleven") - talented commercial filmmakers, each. It's apparent that Clooney not only wants to make movies, he wants to make great movies. It's no fault of his that this one doesn't rise to that level.

Turturro and Nelson fare better as far as the casting goes. Nelson's Delmore is a quietly comic creation with real heart, though he's the dimmest bulb in a movie that's loaded with them. He's the only character the for whom the Coens show any true sympathy; even Everett seems to like him after a while. Turturro, on the other hand, whoops it up mercilessly. His ongoing reputation as a premier actor seems more than a little bit unearned by now. This guy could go over the top while taking a nap. The Coens' commitment to more-more-more only allows him to edge closer to the classically trained Jerry Lewis vibe he's been pursuing for the past several years. In "O Brother," he even sports a set of garish false teeth.

As always, the Coens' technical abilities are beyond reproach. They shoot graceful, beautifully conceived footage. Roger Deakins' golden cinematography and Dennis Gassner's unobtrusive production design are worthy of special recognition. Too bad all that ability was applied to an especially elaborate variation on "Hee Haw."

Trade papers have suggested that the Coens are preparing an adaptation of the late James Dickey's almost wordless existential World War II novel, "To the White Sea." If that's the case, good for them...and good for us. It's not a sin to get serious once in a while.

"O Brother, Where Art Thou?" is goofy in the extreme. The person-to-person violence is just silly. Unfortunately, the Coens choose to include a cow being shot with a machine gun, and another one that gets hit by a car. It looks very real, and it's too cruel to be funny. Rated PG-13. 107 minutes. By the way, T-Bone Burnett compiled the gorgeous soundtrack full of plaintive country tunes from the 1930s. Shania Twain must have been busy designing a laser show.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.