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George Clooney plays fast talking charmer, Ulysses Everett McGuill, who has escaped from a chain gang with Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson). We follow the trio on a series of misadventures in a race against time. His cohorts think there's a buried treasure to get to before a dam threatens to wipe it out. It's really to stop his wife from marrying another—something people working on a chain gang might not see as especially important. Along the way they're turned in by relatives, saved by a Baptist river congregation, find money, lose money, and record a hit song as the Soggy Bottom Boys. Since it's the 1930's we have other indications of the era. Babyface Nelson, the manic bank robber who could have used a strong dose of Prozac, appears. Tommy Johnson (a nod to blues man Robert Johnson), a traveler they pick up, is a guitarist who's sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads for his talent. The KKK is also present. They stumble into a secret meeting and try to save their friend Tommy. The Coen brothers opted for a quirky, initially disconcerting dance number a la "Wizard of Oz" that ends up unmasking the grand wizard (and by extension, the organization) as a big stupid fool. The references to The Odyssey are sly winks: an old blind prophet opens and closes the film, the names of the characters Ulysses (George Clooney) and his estranged wife Penny, short for Penelope (Holly Hunter). The Cyclops arrives as one-eyed Big Dan (John Goodman), a violent Bible salesman whose affiliations with the Klan lead to an incident with a burning cross. The Sirens are three seductive singing babes in white washing by the riverbed. Delmar is almost turned into a frog. The Coen brothers always show me something I have never before seen. In The Big Lebowski I never in a million years would imagine the ashes of a loved one blowing back into my face. Here I see what a barbecued gopher might look like. Thanks to the McDonald's fried chicken head mishap in the winter of 2000, I have had more than my share of this category. The writing is sharp and funny while the sun drenched cinematography is exquisite. Cinematographer Roger Deakins evokes the rural south wonderfully. As for the acting, Clooney's energetic rambling is hilarious, while Turturro and Goodman are in perfect form. Hats off to Tim Blake Nelson, who can handle his fellow convicts and steal a few moments with his brilliance. The music is just as integral to the film as George Clooney. Gorgeous and sublime, it gives the film a great big heart. The audience also has a chance to hear music that Nashville's Music Row ignores in favor of its "cat in heat plunka plunka". Usually, to say a film is "American" conjures up images of car chases and meaty monosyllabic men battling evil. Here, it's the opposite (though there are pursuits and some unintelligible people). The Coen's film is as American as Almodovar's are Spanish.
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