Random Mayhem and Arbitrary Fate

When a minor CIA employee (John Malkovich) is sacked for drinking too much, his wife (Tilda Swinton) decides to divorce him. Her lawyer advises her to gather information about her husband’s financial status. The data disk falls into the hands of two gym employees who think they’ll be able to blackmail the owner and when he refuses to co-operate they try to sell the information to the Russian Embassy.

I had a good chuckle at every scene, found the characters memorable and well-played and the script very witty, as usual with Cohen brothers films. Although different from the suspenseful violence of No Country for Old Men, it shares some of the social vision that gives the films their cohesively dark outlook. This, I thought, had an extra dimension.

All the performances are excellent, and the scenes between imperious Tilda Swinton, and her married lover George Clooney as he struggles to come to grips with his changed situation are hilarious. Frances Dormand is mesmerising as the pragmatically minded Hardbodies gym assistant trying to raise money for ‘surgeries’ to to preserve the appearance her job requires. The double-act she performs with the permanently iPod-plugged Brad Pitt recalls the best of Laurel and Hardy, with Pitt helplessly following in the wake of a woman who makes him wear a suit and tells him to take a more psoitive attitude. Pitt's startled little-boy reaction when Malkovich punched him in the face in response to a demand for money made me almost expect him to ruffle his hair and burst into tears. Malkovich is perfect as the angry foul-mouthed alcoholic fulminating at the ‘morons’ who surround him. It’s as if all the characters live in air-tight bubbles, driven like Restoration Comedy characters by one main obsession and constantly beset by arbitrary setbacks.

Are there faults with this Cohen brothers movie that make it compare badly with, say, Fargo, my favourite Cohen brothers comedy? For a start there are no really lovable characters in it. Frances Dormand, who played an eight-month pregnant police detective in that film doesn’t have the same warm-fuzzy appeal in this. Her Internet-garnered dates, affectionately presented, aren’t as lovable as the bear-like husband in the other film. One or two of the fairly harmless characters are bumped off somewhat abruptly.

What this film does that Fargo only hinted at, however, is take a more cynical view of power in society, signalled by an opening zoom-in apparently from almost outer-space. Ultimately all the characters are victims, although some fare better than others. Interspersed in the action are key discussion between a puzzled CIA Chief and the officer who reports the results of the other characters activities, after the Russians become involved. The decisions about their fates, made by the Chief, seem entirely arbitrary, based more on a sense of convenience than justice. It’s a more baldly nihilistic standpoint than we’ve seen before. The characters are arguably responsible for the scrapes they get into, but it’s the deus-ex-machina , the government representatives, that wield the true power over life and death.


Here's a discussion overview with some good images which raises interesting issues, althought the participants are verbally challenged:

http://revision3.com/bestof/trs-0078/