Intolerable Cruelty

Plot synopsis:
Donovan Donaly (Geoffrey Rush) a TV soap opera producer, surprises his wife Bonnie (Stacey Travis) being intimate with an ex-boyfriend. He files for divorce, and Bonnie hires Miles Massey (George Clooney), a top divorce attorney and the inventor of the "Massey pre-nup", a completely foolproof prenuptial agreement. Miles wins a large property settlement against Donaly, leaving him broke.
Private investigator Gus Petch (Cedric the Entertainer) tails the wealthy and married Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann) on a drunken night out with a blonde. When they stop at a motel, Gus catches their tryst on video. He takes the video to Rex's wife, Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a marriage-for-money predator. She files for divorce, demanding a large property settlement. Unable to afford a divorce settlement, Rex hires Miles to represent him. Marylin's friend, serial divorcée Sarah Sorkin (Julia Duffy), warns Marilyn that Miles will be a dangerous opponent.
Marylin and her lawyer, Freddy Bender (Richard Jenkins), fail to reach an agreement with Miles and Rex. Bored Miles asks the fascinating Marylin to dinner, where they flirt. While they are out, Petch breaks in and copies her address book for Miles, who has his assistant search among the names for Marylin's accomplice in predatory marriage. In court, Marylin feigns an emotional breakdown over Rex's infidelity, professing that she loved Rex unconditionally at first sight.
Miles then calls "Puffy" Krauss von Espy (Jonathan Hadary), a Swiss hotel concierge located by his assistant. Puffy testifies that Marylin asked him to find her a marriage target who was very rich, foolish, and a philanderer whom she could easily divorce, and that he pointed her to Rex. The divorce is granted, but Marylin gets nothing, and Miles' ancient boss, Herb Myerson (Tom Aldredge), congratulates him.
Marylin wants revenge. She finds the now-penniless Donaly living on the street, still clutching his Emmy statuette. She offers him a chance to reclaim his lost glory if he helps her get revenge on Miles. Soon after, Marylin shows up at Miles' office with her new fiancé, oil millionaire Howard D. Doyle (Billy Bob Thornton). Marylin insists on the Massey prenup, which will make it absolutely impossible for her to claim any of her fiancée's assets in the event of a divorce, over both Howard and Miles's objections. However, Howard destroys it during the wedding, as a demonstration of love.
Six months later, Miles goes to Las Vegas to give the keynote address at a convention for divorce attorneys. He encounters Marylin, who has divorced Howard and presumably collected a sizable share of the Doyle Oil fortune. However, she admits that she is disenchanted with her wealthy but lonely life. Miles is thrilled, and marries her on the spur of the moment. To prove that he has no interest in her fortune, he signs the Massey prenup, but she tears it up. The next morning a disheveled Miles tells the convention that love is the most important thing, and that he is giving up divorce for pro bono work.
A short time later, Miles discovers that "Howard D. Doyle" was just an actor from one of Donaly's soap operas. Marylin has tricked him, and now his considerable wealth is at risk. Miles' boss demands that something be done to save the firm's reputation, and suggests the hitman "Wheezy Joe" (Irwin Keyes). Miles hires him to kill Marylin.
Miles then learns that Marylin's ex-husband Rex has died without changing his will, leaving her his entire fortune. Since she is now the wealthier of the two parties, his assets are no longer at risk. A repentant Miles rushes to save Marylin from Wheezy Joe, but Marilyn has already offered to pay him double to kill Miles instead. There is a struggle; in the confusion Wheezy Joe mistakes his gun for his asthma inhaler, and kills himself.
Later, Miles, Marylin and their lawyers meet to negotiate a divorce. Miles pleads for a second chance and retroactively signs a Massey prenup. Realizing her own feelings for him, she tears it up, and they kiss. Marylin then tells Miles that to get Donaly's help for supplying Doyle, she gave him an idea for a hit TV show, restoring his fortunes in the process: America's Funniest Divorce Videos, with Gus Petch as the host.

Tags: revenge, comedy, satire, entertaining, romantic

Review:
With Clooney hired to represent her soon to be ex husband, he inevitably falls for the gold diggers charms.Directed by the Coen brothers, a directorial team who have helmed oddball comedies such as 'Fargo' and 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' this is the team's first branch in to a high profile Hollywood film.
However, despite the quick fire dialogue, Intolerable Cruelty is simply not as funny as it thinks, it's cynical message of love and money taking away the romantic push it needs to place it in the league of the Tracy/Hepburn films the movie aspires to.
The support cast is all good as they provide small snippets of humour, whether it be Wheezy Joe or the rude waitress.Overall it is not the cleverest film the Coen's have done, nor the funniest or most satisfying but, as a multiplex pleasing romance with quirky humour, it does work and should be enjoyed as that..
Thinking of the holes, Coens are very talented artists - perhaps we, the audiences are supposed to be smarter than Miles Massey (George Clooney - perfectly cast) - the very successful, always victorious divorce attorney for the rich and famous?
"Intolerable Cruelty" may not be the best Coens' film but it is enjoyable, stylish, and funny.
I doubt that there are two more strikingly attractive actors in movies today than George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Zeta-Jones, in particular, has the kind of classic beauty that puts her right up there with the great screen legends of all time, women like Ingrid Bergman, Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn, who, with their ravishing good looks and photogenic quality, came to define the ideal of female pulchritude in their time.Credit the Coen Brothers, who made `Intolerable Cruelty,' with having the good sense to know what they had in these two stars and for exploiting it to the full.
They have allowed the actors to play off their good looks, most especially Ms. Zeta-Jones, portraying an icy gold-digger who specializes in marrying rich men with the express purpose of taking them for everything they've got once the marriage is ended.
It's not that `Intolerable Cruelty' doesn't provide its fair share of laughs; it's just that we feel there should be a whole lot more of them given the pedigree of the film's makers and the high-powered acting of its amazingly gifted cast.In addition to Clooney and Zeta-Jones  who hit all the right notes in their playing off one another  the lineup also includes Geoffrey Rush, Billy Bob Thornton, Edward Herrmann, Richard Jenkins and Cedric the Entertainer, who steals the few scenes he's in with his manic interpretation of a private investigator who specializes in capturing wayward spouses in compromising positions.Perhaps, `Intolerable Cruelty,' for all its moments of mirth and fun, simply doesn't go far enough into the realm of outrageousness to make the concept really work.
The Coen Brothers, who have proven themselves masters of the absurd in the past, for some reason seem to be holding back in this film, going for the easy laugh and the easy sentiment when what we really want is for them to cut loose and go for the jugular (as Danny De Vito did with similar material in `The War of the Roses' so many years ago).
Maybe Miles and Marylin need to be a little more nasty, a trifle more cutthroat in their demeanor to bring it all to life.`Intolerable Cruelty' offers some hearty chuckles and some definite eye-candy in the person of Ms. Zeta-Jones, but, when all is said and done, the film is mainly just promises and not enough delivery..
A surprisingly smart comedy from Joel and Ethan Cohen, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY is a deft and entertaining comedy about the relationship that develops between a fast talking attorney (George Clooney) and a man-eating gold digger (Catherine Zeta-Jones)who pretty much eats husbands for lunch.
I thought the Coen Brothers look at divorce court lawyers' lives in this comedy with a twist was actually pretty interesting.
I thought the acting was great, especially George Clooney who i liked a lot in the lead, he was perfectly casted for this role.
The script writers deserve much credit for this under rated flick, as do Clooney and Zeta-Jones, who turn out their best performances since the turn of the century.On first viewing this movie can appear just another average comedy with a few names but nothing special.
Yowza!The film failed, as almost all Coen Brothers' movies fail, at the box office because, while delightful and funny, it's also ICE-COLD.
In any case, I'll be one of the  "I-Told-You-Sos"  when, a decade hence, *Intolerable Cruelty*  will be regarded as one of the few intelligent romantic comedies made in recent times.Let me put it this way:  if you think a movie in which the two romantic leads put a contract on each other is too  "mainstream", you've revealed yourself as a poseur who should leave the amateur reviewing to the grown-ups.
But when he works his magic against Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), he may have picked on the wrong person.I didn't find Intolerable Cruelty very funny.
I've liked most of writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen's previous films, but Intolerable Cruelty seemed to me to have little of the inventiveness and cleverness of their past efforts.
I have also liked most of the past films that George Clooney, Billy Bob Thornton and Geoffrey Rush have been in, but here they seemed to be turning in just okay performances for bad material.
Heck, I even loved Clooney's turn at Batman (1997's Batman & Robin), Thornton's portrayal of a rocket scientist in Armageddon (1998), and Geoffrey Rush's eccentric millionaire in House on Haunted Hill (1999), but Intolerable Cruelty just didn't work for me.Still, I can't say the film was a complete failure.
Ultimately giving u little time to think about what you are watching which may well be its incentive to cover up the naked emperor standing in front of u, shamelessly waving his procreational tools in your face.Talk about restaurants, take in mind the scene with Clooney and Jones exchanging the one-liners as if it was a ping-pong game which, like with all games, in the end will also have a loser..why do that?
The list really just goes on and on.Clooney, Jones and a score of familiar others in the acting business go out of their way to make complete fools of themselves in yet another meager tale screenplayed and directed by the Coen Brothers.
I get what they were going for, but it missed the mark for me completely.George Clooney plays a hot winning divorce lawyer who gets involved with a deceiving gold digger (Catherine Zeta Jones) who marries him to make a fortune in the divorce, resulting in plain, cheesy, goofball comedic misfortune.I normally enjoy the Coen's full blown comedies with Hudsucker Proxy, O Brother, Where art Thou?, and Raising Arizona, but this just went too far in my mind.
I thought their acting was less...acting, and more of realistic attempts at chemistry.I liked the story, though I didn't always get the characters' actions and reactions.Some of the camera work and cinematics were interesting; lighting effects made it almost a dreamy/artsy movie.
The real Intolerable Cruelty is subjecting people to this crap AND making them pay for it.George Clooney plays Miles Massey, an expert divorce attorney who is getting bored with being in bad movies.
This whole film is like a drunk and ditzy girl at the party - she might be nice to look at, but don't get too close, or you'll be bored to sleep with her silly conversation, or vomited upon.I like George Clooney, but no actor/actress carries out a good performance in this train wreck.
The Coen brothers, credited with great films like The Big Lebowski and The Man Who Wasn't There, have done just that.
Though George Clooney sunk his teeth (which his character was obsessed with not being white enough) into his character with gusto, Catherine Zeta-Jones just drifted through the movie smirking smugly and looking confident about her beauty.
The whole reason for you watching the film is to find out if the Catherine Z-J character is someone who can be trusted to genuinely love the George Clooney character, or if a last-minute twist will reveal that yet again, she's doing it for the money.
Starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, with a trailer that suggests a witty, sexy "battle of the sexes" kind of movie romp, I rented this - and good grief...
at their best, they are "big lebowski" brilliant.....apt phrasing and dialogue flow into memorable lines, characters are quirky studies and the absurd is somehow made believable...at their worst, they are clunky their pacing is off and their characters grate....george clooney's usual charm has turned reptilian in this smarmy movie...bernie mac is actually very un-funny and his catchphrase is so forced, it sounds old the third time its uttered.
The acting is very good, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones are both good, but Billy Bob Thornton is amazing, he gives the surprise performance of the movie, we all knew he could do it but when he showed up giving such a great performance when I didn't even know he was in the movie, it kinda surprised me.
For the number of big names in this film (Catherine Zeta Jones, George Clooney, Cedric, Billy Bob Thornton, Geoffrey Rush) I definitely would have expected much better.
The film also had a share of scene-stealing supporting characters from Paul Adelstein as the easy crier assistant, Cedric the Entertainer as a private eye, Billy Bob Thornton as a rich Texan and perfect target for Marilyn, not to mention Irwin Keyes who's responsible for the film's single most hilarious moment, but despite all this great casting, the interplays between the two leads are so overused that we're left with a sort of a cinematic Catch 22.
I enjoyed "Intolerable Cruelty" during the crucial moments where Clooney and Jones were interacting but for a movie showing us how far and wrong a marriage could go, there was nothing really out of the ordinary, nothing ingenuous or risqué, the whole thing is played like a little farce, a joke where everyone is on, except for the viewers.
but never to the point that you wish to watch it again, And not being re-watchable is a mortal sin when it comes to the Coen brothers.Don't take me wrong, I don't blame the film for being bad, but for not being as good as its story promises, for not swimming in more unsafe waters.
The one fault of the Coen's in making this movie was a lack of close-ups - a dead giveaway for what they were trying to achieve.At best, this is a funny romantic black comedy, with witty dialogue.
"Fargo" dealt with organized crime, "The Big Lebowski" dealt with how an unemployed bum doesn't have to deal with the world, "The Hudsucker Proxy" showed how a low educated individual can change an industry; now in "Intolerable Cruelty" the Coens show audiences how love is some what odd.George Clooney is Miles Massey, a high powered divorced lawyer that is bored out of his life and feels as he's missing something; until he meets Maryiln played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, a money digger that loves wealthy men and goes after their money.
Other than George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cedric the Entertainer; the film also stars Billy Bob Thorton, Bruce Campbell(in a cameo), Julia Duffy, Richard Jenkins and Geoffrey Rush.This is one of the Coen's best comedies..
I only fuel this statement by the evidence that their film Intolerable Cruelty is an under-nourishing exercise in dramatic filmmaking that features great screen presences chewing scenery and taking in the luxurious set designs they've been placed in.Miles Massey (George Clooney) is a top divorce attorney who agrees to take Rex Rexroth's (Edward Herrmann) case, which involves him cheating on his wife Marylin (Catherine Zeta-Jones).
Intolerable Cruelty suffers from the fact that the material isn't that interesting, the characters are stuffy and vanilla, and the directions taken by the Coens do nothing but make a relatively unengaging, forgettable picture.Perhaps you're a big fan of the brothers Coen and you enjoy this film.
Think if the Coens had been opted out for a random, aspiring filmmaker and the actors taken several steps down from Clooney and Zeta-Jones to indie-stars like Kentucker Audley and Lake Bell, would your reaction still be as strong?
Intolerable Cruelty, the story of a gold digging woman (Zeta-Jones) and the attorney (Clooney) who handles the divorce for her husband is another in a string of comedies from the wonderful Coen Brothers.
Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney are great actors, but this film is just bad.
Maybe bad casting, script.This battle-of-the-sexes screwball comedy - gold-digger (Catherine Zeta-Jones) v divorce attorney (George Clooney) in a film in which tries to be funny, but misses some sort of mark.Eight years in the making - seven years too long.Intolerable to watch and very cruel to suggest others to watch..
The 'pitch' to the studios must have sounded impressive: take one of the best-looking actors, hunky George Clooney, and one of the most attractive actresses, Welsh rose Catherine Zeta-Jones, and team them with those quirky Coen brothers (Joel & Ethan) to produce an old-fashioned romantic comedy in which true love triumphs over the cynicism of the divorce lawyers.
But there also has to be a man who comes along to make everything change, so the movie is also about a charming and supremely adept divorce lawyer (George Clooney) who is completely amoral and win-oriented till he finds love replacing lust with the most ruthless of women (Ms. Zeta-Jones)  an outcome which, given the extremism of the behavior already illustrated in the movie, is pretty far fetched -- and in addition makes Intolerable Cruelty soft and syrupy at the core.I don't know if George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones have that magical chemistry together some profess to see in them, but they're both so unquestionably charismatic and good looking, and they perform with such spirit and ease in this movie, that they appear perfectly right together.
Among the things that I like best about most of the Coen brothers' other films are their understated humor and ironic plot twists.
It comes from the funny side of the Coen Brothers work--like "Raising Arizona" or "O Brother Where Art Thou?" And it has some funny moments for sure, but overall it has a formulaic romantic comedy plot and routine construction and filming.
The convoluted cleverness of the director/producer/writer team (Joel and Ethan) isn't really focused here.I have to admit I wouldn't have finished this if it wasn't a Coen brothers movie because I really love some of their films.
At first glance Intolerable Cruelty doesn't seem like a typical Coen brothers movie at all.
Set among the shark-infested waters of Los Angeles' divorce lawyers, Intolerable Cruelty is as cynical a rom-com as you'd ever expect to see, with Catherine Zeta Jones excelling as the professional gold-digger who eventually falls for divorce attorney Miles Massey, played with great comedic zest by the disgustingly good-looking AND talented George Clooney.
Clooney is incredibly dashing, Zeta-Jones is stunning, and more importantly, both are very funny.More a case of talented film makers servicing a genre exceptionally, than virtually reinventing movies from whole cloth.
had sold their soul to Hollywood.But when I finally saw Intolerable cruelty,I took a very big surprise.The Coen bros.did not disappoint me on their most commercial film.First of all,I love that the movie is very unpredictable and that's something really strange for a romantic comedy.The movie is very fun,too.There's no doubt that the Coen bros.are two great directors.Like I said before I was expecting a disaster and it really surprised me.I totally recommend this great romantic comedy.Rating:8.5.
Very good Clooney, Zeta-Jones; like in the famed Sturges/Capra comedies, the entire supporting cast is funny.
Would this be as funny if we didn't know it was by the Coens or without Clooney/Zeta-Jones?
But it was another instance wherein I felt like he was doing all the work in their relationship, and in this film.But back to the weirdos for a moment, Billy Bob's initial cameo forced me to stop and rewind the scene (when he first meets Clooney's Miles Massey).
A good sign."Intolerable Cruelty" contains one of the funniest inadvertent suicide scenes -- no, make that THE funniest inadvertent suicide scene -- ever committed to film.George Clooney has never been handsomer; he really is like a fine wine and gets more delicious as he ages.
It is funny, and, like other Coen Brothers flix, it's a fun salute to previous films we know and love..
I went to "Intolerable Cruelty" with high expectations:  a Coen Brothers comedy with beautiful actors in the lead roles, dealing with divorce lawyers and pre-nuptial agreements among the super-rich in Los Angeles.
This is one of the most funniest movies of the year with a zesty and zany acting roles for George Clooney along with the cool and mysterious Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Intolerable Cruelty is brought to us by the Coen brothers, those wacky brothers noted for delivering wit with a wink in films like Raising Arizona, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and The Big Lebowski.
And the movie had too much ham support from Paul Adelstein.When its all said and done its a film good for a few laughs, Clooney fans, Jones fans, and for killing a couple hours when you have the time..
The chemistry between him and Catherine Zeta-Jones is an interesting dynamic of the Coen brothers cynical approach to modern love.
George Clooney (who also starred in the Coen Brothers' "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", which was of about equal quality) stars as Miles Massey, a slick divorce lawyer who gets in over his head with an ice-cold gold digger named Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones, who looks like the most beautiful woman who has ever lived here) who is divorcing her husband (Edward Herrmann).