Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
For all its ambitions, though, the Coens' odyssey is a scattershot affair with too many tricks and twists for its own good.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom, France, United States · 2000
Rated PG-13 · 1h 47m
Director Joel Coen
Starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, Chris Thomas King
Genre Adventure, Comedy, Crime
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
In the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them. On their journey they come across many comical characters and incredible situations. Based upon Homer's 'Odyssey'.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
For all its ambitions, though, the Coens' odyssey is a scattershot affair with too many tricks and twists for its own good.
The art direction is impeccable, but this is a pop-up book that I was impatient to slam.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
After making their two best features to date, "Fargo" and "The Big Lebowski," the Coen brothers have surely come up with their worst.
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
Enlivening things to an unprecedented extent, the songs turn O Brother into perhaps the warmest production in the Coens' repertoire.
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
A remarkable film. From its performances on down to director of photography Roger Deakins' sun-baked, dirty-ochre cinematography, the film is all of a piece.
Of all unlikely possibilities, the team has finally made a movie that, for them, is on the tepid side.
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
Why would filmmakers with this much talent work this hard to thumb their noses at everything they put on screen?
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
It's a wild, whacked-out wonder. Coenheads rejoice.
Miami Herald by Rene Rodriguez
Remains naggingly hollow, a cerebral exercise in whimsy that isn't nearly clever or funny enough to seem like more than grand self-indulgence.
All I can say is this particular excursion into screwball madness is often heavenly, and frankly leaves critical explication somewhat unnecessary. Go see it and laugh.
Intelligence is relative.
...seriously!