Sibling filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen (“Fargo") have been cutting quirky cinematic gems together for more than 20 years, but in all that time, they never got around to making a romantic comedy. After laying eyes on their 10th joint effort, "Intolerable Cruelty," I'm still not sure they have.
Granted, this cheeky tale of divorce attorneys and gold diggers features no shortage of hummingly funny moments, but it's also the most unsparingly cynical movie the Coens have made, and for that reason, only slightly more romantic than an Alaskan oil spill. The sentiments are hollow, the kisses cold.

George Clooney — the Coens' leading man in "O Brother Where Art Thou?" (2000) — plays ace Los Angeles divorce lawyer Miles Massey, author of the iron-clad Massey Prenup and desperately unfulfilled bachelor. Aching for the proverbial "something more," Miles meets his match in Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), opportunistic ex-wife of a philandering former client. Though he stiff-armed her in court, Miles has genuine feelings for the brunette stunner. Unimpressed, she rejects him for a talkative oil scion (Billy Bob Thornton) with a distaste for prenups.

True to form, Marylin takes the cowboy to the cleaners, achieving her long-standing dream of "independence" in the bargain. Free to follow her heart, she throws herself at Miles, who promptly disavows his profession and commits himself to a life of charity and love. But is Marylin for real, or is she coldly exacting revenge on the man who once rained on her alimony parade?
As always, the Coens — Joel directs, Ethan produces, they both write — display a scoutlike grasp of the terrain; in this case, a cynical California wilderness of cheating millionaire husbands and short-timing trophy wives where "getting laid is like playing Russian roulette." Cedric the Entertainer chips in a riotous bit role as Gus Petch, a snooping private eye whose mantra — "I'm gonna nail yo (expletive)!" — becomes a sort of rallying call for the sun-and-spa hausfrau crowd.

However, "Intolerable Cruelty" is a corrupted creature. It yearns to rise above the din of greed and cynicism, but never quite finds a toehold. With Miles as their mouthpiece, the Coens pay plenty of lip service to the concepts of love and trust, but in the end, one is left with the impression that the central love story is just another bull's-eye for the filmmakers to fling darts at.

Zeta-Jones (“Traffic") comes off as mechanical and sexless — like a robot programmed to sniff out alimony — and Clooney doesn't fare much better as a shallow shyster with a teeth-bleaching fetish. Disappointingly, Miles never lives up to his own high-minded pleas of matrimonial rectitude, and he emerges as nothing more than a common dilettante, a romantic pretender. As such, our affection for Miles wanes as the movie wears on, and that's the kiss of death for any loverboy.

‘Intolerable Cruelty’

Starring: George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cedric the Entertainer, Geoffrey Rush
Playing: Opens Friday throughout the Valley
Rating: PG-13 (sexual content, profanity, brief violence)
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Grade: C+