INTOLERABLE CRUELTY
RATING: PG-13
STARRING: George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Edward Herrmann, Cedric the Entertainer, and Billy Bob Thornton
DIRECTOR: Joel Coen
PRODUCERS: Ethan Coen and Brian Grazer
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Sean Daniel and James Jacks
WRITERS: Joel and Ethan Coen, Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, and John Romano
DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures
GENRE: Romantic Comedy
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Teenagers and adults
SUMMARY: Intolerable Cruelty stars George Clooney as Miles Massey, a clever divorce settlement attorney who has met all his goals yet remains unsatisfied. Massey becomes smitten with Marilyn, a beautiful gold digger played by Catherine Zeta Jones whom he defeats in court. His infatuation with her begins to change his cynical view on love and marriage. He decides to pursue her. After Marilyn successfully scams another husband, she meets Massey in Las Vegas and woos him to the brink of his sanity.
Intolerable Cruelty is a very funny movie about shallow, crass, selfish, and greedy people. Even when Massey becomes a love-convert and preaches to a tough crowd, moviegoers will sense that it is just a matter of time before his newfound faith in love and marriage is dashed on the rocks waiting below. Betrayal, broken trust, and infidelities are not laughing matters, but this movie sadly presents marriage as the biggest joke. Clooney and Zeta-Jones are in top form here and their star power mutually shines. Intolerable Cruelty would be intolerably insufferable without them.
CONTENT: Humanist worldview with strong Romantic elements glorifying divorce and multiple marriage-for-profit schemes, and anti-biblical themes surface as marriage, love, and trust are mocked, though movie implies that work and wealth are not in themselves fulfilling and life is far better when it can be shared with someone you love; 11 obscenities (one "f" word), 6 profanities, and 8 blasphemies.
MYSTIC RIVER
RATING: R
STARRING: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurence Fishburne, and Laura Linney
DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood
PRODUCERS: Robert Lorenz, Judie G. Hoyt, and Clint Eastwood
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Bruce Berman
WRITER: Brian Helgeland
BASED ON THE NOVEL BY: Dennis Lehane
DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Mystery Thriller
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Older teenagers and adults
SUMMARY: Mystic River stars Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon as Jimmy, Dave, and Sean, three childhood friends in Boston who have gone their separate ways after Dave escapes from two pedophiles who abused him when he was a boy. When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Dave becomes a prime suspect. The gun involved in the murder, however, turns out to belong to Jimmy's former criminal buddy, who disappeared suddenly after betraying Jimmy to the police. One of the buddy's sons was planning to run away to Vegas with the daughter the day she was found murdered.
Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, and especially Marcia Gay Harden deliver excellent performances as Jimmy, Dave, Sean, and Dave's wife Celeste. Despite positive moral elements and brief references to the Christian faith of some characters, Mystic River contains too much R-rated foul language and an unsatisfying humanist perspective on the effect of fate and circumstance on human beings. The sex and violence is not as lurid as it could have been, however.
CONTENT: Light humanist worldview where past traumatic events shape people's lives, but story appears to contain a strong sense of the evil of sin and its consequences, with brief anti-Christian element where pedophile wears a crucifix but there are other minor references to the Roman Catholic and Christian faith of some of the characters and their environment; about 42 mostly strong obscenities, nine strong profanities; implied pedophilia (nothing shown).
