Leaves of Grass

2009 dark crime comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Bill or Brady Kincaid has left Oklahoma where his identical twin brother, Brady or Bill, and his mother still live. He's an author and philosophy professor and wants nothing to do with his family or any state that has a panhandle. He travels back to his home state when he gets word that his twin brother has died.

This is a Coen-esque dramedy with some shocking violence and a humor from left-center field, but it's not as fully realized or, well, as brilliantly written as anything in the brothas' oeuvre. And whoa. There are at least three words in that last sentence that make me wonder if I should still be doing this blog. This is Tim Blake Nelson's baby. He wrote and directed, and he also plays a character who I'm convinced is actually just himself. Edward Norton, an actor my wife has a thing for, is good in one of those dual-performances, identical twins that are physically identical minus a mullet and some facial hair but completely different in the personality department. I always think Norton's convincing playing intelligent characters, and I think it's because of his voice. Here, he pontificates about Kierkegaard with the short-haired character and throws out Okies' jargon like "I don't cotton." He's convincing in both roles, and as strange as it seems to type this, he has really good chemistry with himself. Richard Dreyfuss also has a small role and gets to say, "I'd like everybody in the world to call me a cocksucker and give me a dollar because that way I'd be rich and everybody'd love me." Susan Sarandon's also in there, but she doesn't have any lines about being a cocksucker. The story's often implausible and things happen in this movie-quick way that never feels natural, but I do like the thematic tying-together of philosophy and meteorology. This might be like a diet Coen, but it's fairly entertaining, thematically easy, and well acted enough to make it worth your time.

Note: I don't remember if Norton's philosophy professor character (Brady or Bill) talked about Kierkegaard or not, but I thought it throwing that name in there would make me seem smarter and trick philosophy buffs into finding my blog.