After making what are still probably their two best features, the Coen brothers came up with their worst, a piece of pop nihilism.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:33
Fresh:23
Rotten:10
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Though not as good as Coen brothers' classics such as Blood Simple, the delightfully loopy O Brother, Where Art Thou? is still a lot of fun.
Theatrical Release:Dec 22, 2000 Limited
Box Office: $45,150,731
Synopsis: Joel and Ethan Coen transport Homer's ODYSSEY to the depression-era South in the silly, fun comedy O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson star as three... Joel and Ethan Coen transport Homer's ODYSSEY to the depression-era South in the silly, fun comedy O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson star as three escaped fugitives on the run in Mississippi. Their adventures through the barren landscape includes run-ins with a soothsayer, a trio of Sirens, a Bible-salesman Cyclops, as well as other archetypes from Southern folklore and pop-culture including a young blues musician, the Klan, and bank robber Baby Face Nelson. Soon they are caught up in a vicious gubernatorial campaign that would make Huey Long proud. The Coen brothers mix in a host of cinematic references in O BROTHER, including SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, COOL HAND LUKE, I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG, and even dashes of the Three Stooges. The soundtrack of folk ballads, yodeling traditionals, Delta blues, and prison work songs is outstanding, playing in the background (or foreground) of nearly every scene. Clooney, as the ringleader, displays an effervescent smile that is as intoxicating as the Coens' script is outrageous. The cast, including Holly Hunter, Charles Durning, John Goodman, Chris Thomas King, and Michael Badalucco, is charmingly bewildering in a way that only a Coen brothers' cast can be. Joel and Ethan have done it again, crafting this time a unique film steeped in the traditions of the South--and of Hollywood itself. [More]
Starring: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman
Starring: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Michael Badalucco, Chris Thomas King, Charles Durning, Daniel Von Bargen, Stephen Root, John McConnell, Musetta Vander, Mia Tate, Christy Taylor, Wayne Duvall, J. R. Horne, Brian Reddy, Frank Collison
Director: Joel Coen
Director: Joel Coen
Screenwriter: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Producer: Ethan Coen
Composer: T Bone Burnett
Studio: Buena Vista Pictures
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Reviews for O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Coens' usual arch deliberateness isn't quite as deliberate, and there's an appealing shagginess to some of the episodes and performances.
You have to admire how deep and irreverently O Brother goes into our culture to find its material.
O Brother itself is just frustrating, mostly because we know what the Coens are capable of when truly inspired.
A giddy merriment blessed with the Coens' skewed signature wit and the year's best soundtrack.
Mixing dark humor with high spirits, the brothers take some wild risks that pay off surprisingly well.
The surprise is how much fruitful digression such plotlessness makes possible. With no particular place to go, this hobo of a movie is free to roam the damnedest places.
Before it's all over, the real siren songs of time and place turn the visual kitsch into a distilled Americana that's unexpectedly stirring.
I had the sense of invention set adrift; of a series of bright ideas wondering why they had all been invited to the same film.
As a Coen brothers fan I hate to say this, but the movie's a collection of great bits and pieces rather than a complete work.
It's a new new thing, classic myth from both literature and the movies, commingled, set to great folk music, and untrammeled by any sense of predictability, urgency, realism or believability but hypnotic, graceful and seductive.
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