Intolerable Cruelty 2003

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Clooney and Zeta-Jones make for a glamorous couple, and there is enough chemistry between them that you might find yourself wondering if Michael Douglas has a Miles Massey prenup. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Full of malicious fun, weirdness and enough star power to blast through any repetitiveness. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: [T]here's a lot of problems with the script, and some of the stuff with Edward Herrmann I don't think works at all, it's not funny it just kind of falls flat. But Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, I think they deliver enough to say it's worth seeing. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Elegant, cheerfully cynical fun of the kind we used to get regularly from Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks and other masters of the classic Hollywood screwball comedy. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: An intelligent, modern screwball comedy. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: The Coens do an efficient job of stamping their signature grotesquerie on sumptuous Beverly Hills and Las Vegas settings and ladling on gallows humor and malice, sometimes with the verve of early Robert Zemeckis. Read more

Steve Murray, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A display of two high-wattage stars sweating to enliven a paper-thin script that substitutes plot twists for an engaging story. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: It's determined to keep Clooney's considerable comedic skills front and center. He's never been looser, sexier, or more antic. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: So clever, so funny, so suavely entertaining that it comes as a shock to realize that it's not nearly as satisfying as all those qualities would lead you to believe. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: The movie simply isn't interesting. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Watching Clooney's Miles and Zeta-Jones' Marylin eye each other is a simmering pleasure. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: I cannot detect a heartbeat of feeling, no matter how close I press a stethoscope against the star machinery of George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: If Intolerable Cruelty establishes one thing, it's that George Clooney is the closest thing that contemporary Hollywood has to an old-fashioned matinee idol. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Testimony to the power of old-style star wattage. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: The Coens fail to give us a compelling reason why, if at all, we should invest ourselves in how things pan out. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: As Miles Massey, Clooney brings an absurdist charm -- and some Cary Grant-like gestural hilarity. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Edward Herrmann gets a very funny part as a train-happy millionaire; Cedric the Entertainer pulls the movie in another direction as a streety private detective. And as Clooney's worshipful, weepy best friend, Paul Adelstein nearly steals the movie. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: If Intolerable Cruelty isn't a convincing love story, it's a hugely entertaining one. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: This dim-witted, mean-spirited and brain-dead calamity should surprise no one. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: The Coen Brothers do provide enough of a diversion with bits and pieces of wacko casting, and with the deranged details of dress and makeup of their fleeting gargoyles, to make the proceedings at least moderately amusing. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Rarely has strife between the sexes been so ruthless, so civilized, and so funny. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Joel and Ethan are bounteously gifted filmmakers, but sometimes you just want them to lay off the irony and climb down here with the groundlings. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones square off deliciously, but this '30s-style battle of the sexes from the Coen brothers never catches fire. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: Too slick but amusing marital farce. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: No different from most of the other dumb slapstick spoofs that pass for screwball comedy these days. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Intolerable Cruelty isn't half as clever as most Coen films ... but it's much more likable. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: If you're going to take comic aim at a target as big and obvious as Beverly Hills matrimonial combat, the least you can do is what Joel and Ethan Coen do in their neo-screwball anti-romantic comedy Intolerable Cruelty: spare no ammunition. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Here's an anomaly: a comedy about smart people. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Inventive and hilarious. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Not brilliantly funny nor incisively clever, Intolerable Cruelty is still moderately satirical and laugh-out-loud enjoyable. Read more

David Rooney, Variety: A thoroughly entertaining comedy about love, lawyers and fat divorce settlements. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: To see Clooney tenderize, season, grill, and serve this ham hock of a role is to see an old-fashioned virtuoso in perpetual motion. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Smart, silly, splenetic and a bit smug, it's a movie that might put a viewer's teeth on edge were it not for its winning lead performances. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: In its nasty, blackhearted take on contemporary coupling and uncoupling, Intolerable Cruelty has the distant though unmistakable ring of truth. Read more