10 Famous Directors Who Completely Changed Style For One Movie

Despite their knack for genre-hopping, Coen Brothers movies feature three elements above all else: caper motifs, exceptionally quirky characters, and jet black comedy. Intolerable Cruelty has very little of that.

The average viewer could pick a Coen production out of a lineup pretty easily, without getting past the first few scenes. Likewise, you can tell Intolerable Cruelty is the odd man out in their filmography after the crafty opening credit sequence gives way to a fairly standard issue battle of the sexes story.

Sure, the characters -- particularly George Clooney's smarmy divorce attorney -- engage some of that famous, well-timed Coen banter, but aside from a few aesthetic idiosyncrasies, you'd hardly recognize that they were behind the lens.

This all makes the film perhaps the Coens' most forgettable. The story is derivative, the cinematography is bland, and most of the characters were painted using the broadest of strokes. It's one very small step away from featuring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. That's how lightweight this rom-com is.