Not Great But Not Bad

Rating: 7/10 (17 February 2016)

It's a 7. Plain and simple. It wasn't extraordinarily funny. It did have good moments. It had some fine quirkiness. It was very enjoyable.
But, it wasn't a great Coen movie. They've made better. The setting, the actors, the basic story line were all there. The problem was simply that the script was a bit slow moving and not excessively funny.
The film had a good message (as nearly all Coen brothers films do); but it just did not have the depth of humor that, say, O Brother, Fargo, or others did.
I thought that Clooney was okay - sometimes very funny other times clichÃ©. Brolin was very good but he just didn't quite have the dialogue to make his role exceptional.
That's not to say there weren't some funny scenes nor that it was not enjoyable. It was, but it just lacked oomph! So, it's middling to good. Better than a 6. But no better than a 7.