O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

Directed by Joel Coen. Starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson

Simultaneously an homage to Preston Sturges and a re-working of Homer's Odyssey filtered through the Coens' twisted sensibility, O Brother Where Art Thou? may not quite represent the brothers' finest hour, but still goes to prove that they're wholly incapable of producing anything that doesn't bear some trace of magnificence.

A road-movie of sorts, set in the early-20th century rural Deep South, O Brother is a weird and wonderful journey to the heart of nowhere in particular - and if there remains a nagging suspicion that there's less to it than meets the eye, it still serves up enough pure pleasure to make the trip more than worthwhile.

Convict Everett Ulysses McGill (Clooney) escapes the chain-gang, aided and abetted by hulking malcontent Pete (Turtturo) and lovable dullard Delmar (Nelson), and the trio set out to cross depression-stricken Missisippi in search of buried treasure. In no time, we're in the middle of a fantastical quasi-Gothic universe populated by unlikely historical figures such as Delta-blues singer Tommy (as opposed to Robert) Johnson, whom the trio pick up at (of all places) a crossroads where he has just completed his Faustian transaction with the Dark Lord.

However, this ain't so much Missisippi as Coen-country - so you can expect plenty by way of Ku Klux Klan meetings, one-eyed bible salesmen and unscrupulous southern politicians, as our escapees have chance encounters with singing sirens, record bluegrass singles and evade gun-totin' state authorities to frequently side-splitting effect.

It's all punctuated by an endless stream of rootsy gospel/blues/c'n'w musical numbers, lending the film something of the status of a hillbilly musical. The result is the Coens' most fantastical and least straightforward film since The Hudsucker Proxy, with a loose episodic structure even more languid than 1998's Big Lebowski.

On occasion, it crosses the line between languid and laboured: there are only so many twangy guitars one can stomach in a two-hour stretch, and Clooney's trademark charm has a tendency to border on smarm.

Nonetheless, if the film isn't quite as epic as its premise suggests, it's impossible to argue with while it lasts, and serves as a massively likeable addition to one of the greatest bodies of work in modern-day cinema.