10 Potentially Awesome Movies Ruined By The PG-13 Curse

5. Intolerable Cruelty

The Coen brothers might seem like the last directors you'd see cropping up on a list of movies ruined by the curse of PG-13, but there is one exception to their otherwise all-round awesome filmography which clearly lost something in its desire to appeal to mainstream audiences and tone things down from the Coens' usual dark and foul-mouthed approach to comedy. Intolerable Cruelty really doesn't feel like a Coen brothers movie - while it retains their trademark cynicism in its tale of unscrupulous divorce lawyers and shameless gold diggers, the sharp bite and black humour for which they are renowned seems to have been lost in translation to the big screen. While the Coens' idiosyncrasies aren't necessarily predicated on their colourful language and adult sensibilities, their absence here certainly seems to suggest that their movies are inferior when aiming for a popular audience. After all, a romantic comedy starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones is unlikely to get the green light with an R rating attached, whether or not you're the Coen brothers.