DVD Reviews

O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Blu-ray Review

By Dana Rae Sep 26, 2011, 14:24 GMT

George Clooney (The Perfect Storm) and John Turturro (Cars 2)embark on the adventure of a lifetime in this hilarious, offbeat road picture. And now, for the first time, this quirky gem shines more brightly than ever in Blu-ray High Definition! Fed up with crushing rocks on a prison farm in Mississippi, the dapper, silver-tongued Ulysses Everett McGill (Clooney) busts loose...except he\'s still shackled to two misfits from his chain gang: bad-tempered ...more

The Coen brother’s 2000 rendition of Homer’s epic poem ‘The Odyssey’ (loosely based, of course) is set in the 1930s in the Deep South - Mississippi to be exact.

The title is actually a nod to the 1940s movie ‘Sullivan’s Travels’ in which the main character Sully discovers he needs to make a comedy to make people (especially poor people) laugh.

Perhaps that is the Coen brothers combining their own brand of irony to their own brand of comedy? There are also some nods to Cool Hand Luke that movie buffs will happily get and laugh about.

The plot is simple: three convicts escaped from a chain gang are trying to reach Ulysses Everett McGill’s home to retrieve the loot from a bank heist. Along the way, the three meet some colorful characters. If one is familiar with Homer’s poem, then the persons they come across are familiar.

Let’s see…there are the sirens, a Cyclops, a blind prophet. Others that they meet in their journey are a KKK lynch mob, a campaigning governor, and bank robber Babyface Nelson.

George Clooney plays the main character, Everett, whose house they are trying to get to. He is a Dapper Dan man. My husband and I still use that quote. As in, “He’s a Dapper Dan Man.” Everett is a bit of a dandy and prefers only one kind of hair product.

The other two in the group are Pete (played by John Turturro) and Delmar (played by Tim Blake Nelson). Together, they make a mighty mismatched threesome that, are first, are chained together not out of freewill or a desire to be together but by actual chains.

Other characters of note are John Goodman as Big Dan Teague and Holly Hunter does a wonderful bit part as Everett’s ex-wife, Penny.

The soundtrack in this movie is phenomenal and almost surpasses the movie in its greatness. Everett and gang manage to record an album that everyone loves and wants more of, and they call themselves The Soggy Bottom Boys.

The music is worked into the movie as The Soggy Bottoms Boys but is actually done by T Bone Burnett, and the soundtrack includes performances by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, and Gillian Welch.

For the first time on Blu-ray, O Brother has some decent features. These include enhanced high definition and sound, as well as featurettes on the making of the movie, story to storyboard comparisons, the music video ‘I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow’, and the theatrical trailer.

This is a definite addition to any Blu-ray collection, and it’s one of those rare gems that can be watched over and over. The movie is pure Coen brother genius, and for anyone who hasn’t seen it, they are missing a great theatrical experience.

And now that it’s on Blu-ray, what better way to see it for the first time or revisit it again? The picture transfers well to high definition. It is sharp and clear enough to see the Dapper Dan grease in Everett’s hair. Highly recommended.

Visit the DVD database for more information.