'Intolerable Cruelty' is a clever and witty film

Intolerable Cruelty

Director: Joel Coen

Cast: George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Billy Bob Thornton

Cert: 12.

The Coen brothers - Joel and co-writer and producer, Ethan - move into the mainstream with this highly-enjoyable comedy romance in which, yet again, Clooney shines and Zeta-Jones further enhances her zooming Hollywood career.

It is a funny - very funny - film which recalls those classic 'screwball' comedies of the Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy-Kate Hepburn era.

Here we have Zeta-Jones as a scheming serial wife who quickly dumps her husbands in order to strip them of their folding stuff. She approaches the best pre-nuptial lawyer (the twinkling and brilliantly charming Clooney) to draw up one of his water-tight contracts so she can marry Thornton.

Romance - naturally - beckons.

Since it is a Coen brothers film we are assured from the outset that it will be more than the sum of its parts. It is a clever and witty film in which the two leads positively shine and spark wonderfully off one another.

Clooney is now doing his best work, establishing himself as Hollywood's most watchable star, and he is in his element as the 'clever' lawyer whose heart begins to rule his head when faced with the manipulative beauty of Zeta-Jones.

It is, in many ways, an old-fashioned film but there is nothing wrong with that when it is such a terrific romp.

Star Rating: 5/5