Only Joel and Ethan Coen, masters of quirky and ultra-stylish genre subversion, would dare nick the plotline of Homer's Odyssey for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, their comic picaresque saga about three cons on the run in 1930s Mississippi. Our wandering hero in this case is one Ulysses Everett McGill, a slick-tongued wise guy with a thing for hair pomade (George Clooney, blithely sending up his own dapper image) who talks his chain-gang buddies (Coen-movie regular John Turturro and newcomer Tim Blake Nelson) to light out after some buried loot he claims to know of. En route they come up against a prophetic blind man on a railroad truck, a burly one-eyed baddie (the ever-magnificent John Goodman), a trio of sexy singing ladies, a blues guitarist who's sold his soul to the devil, a brace of crooked politicos on the stump, a manic-depressive bank robber, and--well, you get the idea. Into this, their most relaxed film yet, the Coens have tossed a beguiling ragbag of inconsequential situations, a wealth of looping, left-field dialogue and a whole stash of gags both verbal and visual. O Brother (the title's lifted from Preston Sturges' classic 1941 comedy Sullivan's Travels) is furthermore graced with glowing, burnished photography from Roger Deakins and a masterly soundtrack from T-Bone Burnett that pays loving homage to American 30s folk-styles: blues, gospel, bluegrass, jazz and more. And just to prove that the brothers haven't lost their knack for bad-taste humour, we get a Ku Klux Klan rally choreographed like something between a Nuremberg rally and a Busby Berkeley musical. --Philip Kemp
On the DVD: This two-disc set duplicates the original single-disc release of the film which included a handful of cast and crew interviews, and adds an additional disc with more interviews, two brief behind-the-scenes featurettes about the production design and the post-production digital colouring of the film, a couple of storyboard-to-scene comparisons and a music video of "Man of Constant Sorrow". There's also a 16-minute documentary to promote the companion Down from the Mountain concert. Frankly there's not a lot here to justify spreading it across two discs: a more pleasing not to say generous offering would have been to cram all these extras onto Disc 1 and give us Down from the Mountain as the second disc. --Mark Walker
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Where art thou Blues fans? I've seen this movie several times now and I'm still fascinated by it - I'm no particular fan of George Clooney or the Coen brothers or Bluegrass music (or even of Homer), but this movie is so cleverly constructed and well acted, with multiple threads that hang and re-cross throughout the story, that each time I watch I see a connection I missed in previous viewings. Reading the other reviews I guess I must be the only ageing Blues fan out here - but Robert Johnson must be up there (sorry, down there)... more info
Unbelievably funny with strangely addicting music I didn't think I would like this film. For one, I normally do not like George Clooney. I cannot think of any other films he has been in that I liked. It was a big surprise that this has become one of my favourite films of all time. And, honestly, it is all down to the characterisation. The characters are acted so well that they are outlandish but believable, from the main four to Babyface Nelson, Big Dan and Hogwallop. The story holds you spellbound with both the antics that the Soggy Bottom Boys get into... more info
Best film I've seen for years This is cinema of the highest calibre. Just like most Coen brothers films, it's not the millions spent on sets, or special effects (they're low to mid budget all the way) but the human touch that sets this apart. Homer was a good place to start, as it could be said that the Homeric poems laid the foundation for secular western literature. Add the genius of the Coen Brothers, and the old-fashioned "cinematic magic" qualities of Clooney, and you have a product that will not age. I've watched it only once so... more info
Waste of your time This film goes downhill which is a difficult feat because it starts off very badly anyway, boring , just not funny did not like anything about this film , tries to hard to be wacky but only succeeds to be backward and extremley tedious, just not my cup of tea ,
![O Brother, Where Art Thou? [2000]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41B2BYBFSWL._SL160_.jpg)
