The Coen brothers are all about good old-fashioned storytelling.
By Bob Brown
WITH Oscars weighing down the Coen brothers’ mantelpieces (Fargo, No Country for Old Men), not to mention those of their stars and crews, the Coens perhaps feel entitled to relax. This is the kind of film that results from loosening your grip, even just a little.
If you want character analysis, hire a shrink. If you want a message, go to Western Union. At their best, the fraternal team is all about good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing more. Their stock-in-trade are eager but witless characters who have a surefire scheme and no way to make it succeed, nor any idea that it won’t. Some of the best of these are in Ethan Coen’s short stories. (For sheer, unadulterated pleasure, look for an audio book selection, Gates of Eden, narrated by the likes of Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Ben Stiller and more. It’s hilarious on first listening, and it stands up to repeated listenings.)
Perhaps No Country For Old Men was so powerful simply because Ethan didn’t write the book. But the synergy of Cormac McCarthy’s novel combined with the Coens’ screenplay and their direction worked magic. This time around, the magic is missing, and maybe it’s because the story has no anchor with which to steady the narrative. It’s really an episodic movie about many Coen characters, all of whom would work well in a short story, but in this longer narrative they are all in search of a point.
If we had to choose one, it must be Linda Litzke (played by Joel’s Oscar-winning wife, the incomparable Frances McDormand). Linda works in the Washington, D.C., Hardbodies Fitness Center, run by Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins of Six Feet Under). She’s so focused on looking fit (costly plastic surgery required) that she can’t see how Ted yearns for her. Instead, she taps into a D.C. dating site that coughs up one reject after another.
When a mysterious CD turns up in the ladies room of Hardbodies, Linda’s co-worker Chad (Brad Pitt) discovers that it contains secret data from the CIA. What it actually contains are the personal records and notes of a recently-ex-CIA agent, Osborne Cox (John Malkovich, who throws a great tantrum in the opening scene). The CD came to the ladies room through the carelessness of a secretary — or was it Osborne’s soon-to-be-ex wife, Katie, played by Tilda Swinton? The plot isn’t too clear here, since Katie was mining Osborne’s files to feed ammunition to her lawyer before serving Osborne papers.
Others in the plot are an erstwhile colleague of Osborne’s, Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), an agent who hasn’t used his sidearm in decades, but who is serially bedding Katie, then Linda, after he turns up on a Web service dating site, unbeknownst to Harry’s wife, Sandy (Elizabeth Marvel), who has something on the side herself. The relationships intertwine when Chad attempts to extort money from Osborne (great to pay for plastic surgeons) in return for the disc (about which Osborne is clueless, although Chad says he is merely being a “good Samaritan”). The not-too-well-covered trail of Linda and Chad suggests that they are super agents on a mysterious mission. But as Osborne’s puzzled boss indicates to his superior (J. K. Simmons, who does clueless perfectly), “Everybody seems to be sleeping with everybody else.”
And that’s one of the problems. In many ways, this film could have been as funny as A Fish Called Wanda, with which it shares a sense of madcap antics and dimwitted characters. But for reasons that are hard to explain, it fails to get these intertwining plots quite under control. We spend the film trying to sort out who is or does what, which takes a lot of concentration. By the time we get to the payoff, it’s a disappointment. Fargo does it better.
Another difficulty is the violence. There are ways to cartoonize murder, oxymoronic as that may be, and the Coens have done so before. But in this film the kills are blatant and vicious enough to induce winces rather than laughs (not that killing is a humorous event — but in the vein of some comedies, it can be done with style. Hitchcock comes to mind).
The film is chock full of screen talent obviously having a lark. You’ve got Swinton and Clooney playing opposite each other again, as they did in the stunner Michael Clayton. And Pitt showing his versatility as a doofus body-builder, while Malkovich gets to chew up the scenery more than he did in Being John Malkovich. One aspect of his character that is locally amusing: Osborne is Princeton Class of ‘73 and is shown attending a class meeting where everyone sings “Old Nassau.” But from the odd performance, it seems that Princeton alumnus Ethan Coen was not paying attention to detail.
Although regular cinematographer Roger Deakins was not available, Emmanuel Lubezki does a creditable job maintaining a rich palette. Carter Burwell, another Coen favorite, comes across with a solid score.
If you’re a Coen brothers fan, you’ll have to see this as part of the oeuvre. And if you do, you have a right to gripe. Still, mediocre Coen brothers are still better than a lot of other siblings.
Rated R for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence.

