Miles Massey is an amazing divorce lawyer who has a well-earned reputation. When he takes on the case of Rex Rexroth, who was caught on video cheating with another woman, he successfully wins the case and leaves the wronged wife, Marylin, with nothing. However he also falls for her, but she is planning his downfall in return for her losing everything she had.
With a big name pair of leads, it does look very much like the Coen's were looking for a big screen hit that would support their work to a greater extent than the loyal fan base does. As that sort of film, it seems to be doing OK, but, I wondered, at what cost to the product? The film starts well enough with an interesting case which we actually see little of, however the character of Miles is enough to hold the film together. The film contains the usual mix of larger than life characters and quirky humour, but the central romancing doesn't always hold true and there are stretches where the humour dips away to find that there is very little left without it.
Having said that, this doesn't occur often enough to be a problem and the film is still pretty good fun. The characters are it's making and there are enough of those to make it work. Clooney excels in the lead with a strange sort of humour - the same sort of character he played in "O Brother" if you ask me, but he does seem to have a touch for the comic stuff. Jones is less assured and her character has less of the humour I expect from the Coens and is more of a straight role. 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.
