Review of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) by Alexander D — 05 Feb 2012

What's relieving about O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? is the fact that it relies on its over-the-top bizarreness to stimulate an audience with laughter. This is set in the 1930s, mind you, and the characters are far enough off the wall to drive US insane with laughter. One character, George ("not Babyface!") Nelson, has both a violent side and a psychotic side. We see them meld into one personality in scenes such as the one in which he tips his head out of the roof of a car, begins cackling and recklessly firing an automatic weapon.

What's excruciating about this film is that the film goes far enough on a bizarre tangent that it often relies singularly on being an offbeat, wacky comedy, rather than building up a noticeable plot. That is to say, half the time, such as during the scene in which our trio disguises themselves as members of the Ku Klux Klan, we REALLY don't know what on Earth is going on. (And in in the most honest sense, we'd rather be left in lacking of that knowledge.).