starts nowhere, goes nowhere and not funny

Rating: 2/10 (1 May 2019)

This is a cut and paste mishmash of caricatures and stereotypes (as most Coen movies are). The shame is that the caricatures are awkward and insult one's intelligence as well as the targets of the caricatures. They even manage to insult and degrade 1930s musicals. All that might be partially forgivable if it was funny but it never gets past the cringe stage. As for the story. There really isn't one. There is just an excuse to wander from one absurd, meaningless, barely coherent scene to the next. In one sense, it is truly post modern, i.e. there is no meaning, no theme other than impossible, dysfunctional characters thrown together to no purpose and you cannot feel good about any of it or take away anything useful from watching them.
Critics and people in the industry seem to give not just the benefit of the doubt to the Coen brothers. Any paint they throw at a wall is hyped and sold as some kind of high art. But there might be method to that madness. If this kind of thing can be elevated to high art, it allows anything slapped together with a splash to be likewise elevated. In the mean time, movies as an art form and a cultural expression are down graded again while presumably the profits continue to flow. If that is what is going on, then this movie starts to make sense.
The only redeeming things I can see about this movie is that John Goodman tried to do something with the wretched material he was given and Sam Elliot just manages to maintain his dignity as the writing and directing attempts to drag him down into ridiculousness. But if I think about it too long, I might conclude that they became caricatures of themselves. Again, that might be forgivable if it was funny, but it isn't.
As for Jeff Bridges, he seems to be deliberately trying to act badly, i.e. blatantly artificial. To what end, I am not sure. Did the directors want that? Possibly, the Coen brothers have certainly used unnatural characters before.
Did Juliane Moore enjoy her incomprehensible role? It didn't make sense even in the vacuous context of the movie.
Please don't fall for the hype. See garbage for what it is. This is not classic or significant in any positive sense.