“Intolerable Cruelty,” starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, is a screwball romantic comedy about a bored marital/divorce lawyer and the ex-wife of one of his clients.

Miles Massey (Clooney), a prominent Los Angeles divorce attorney who’s money doesn’t buy happiness, is taken for the romantic ride of his life when he falls for Marilyn Rexroth (Zeta-Jones) the ex-wife of one of his clients who knows money buys independence and independence is happiness.

When Massey finds out that her multiple marriages are all a game of conquering and financial acquisition he becomes even more intrigued by her beauty and manipulation. But it is when she turns the game on him that things become interesting.

The cute and slightly ridiculous ploys along the way are what make the movie tolerable but other than that, it’s not worth the time, much less the money. There were bits of laughter here and there throughout the theatre at the somewhat predictable outcomes, but all in all there was no comedy about it.

The story begins off slow taking extreme amounts of time to explore the personalities and situations of the two main characters. But as if the writers realized they were running out of time, the action of the plot happens within the last 30 minutes at a rapid speed leaving the audience scratching their heads trying to keep up with the story.

The acting of Zeta-Jones is stereotypical. She plays the cool calm and collected Marilyn Rexroth, whose personality is lacking, existing mainly on the surface (think Zeta- Jones in America’s Sweethearts, but not as outrageous). Her career as a gold digger, always trying to “nail” her husbands in their extra marital affairs, is the only intriguing and humorous aspect about her character.

But Clooney’s attempt at playing a screwball, ridiculously funny, Jim Carrey type character is useless. The attempts at funny facial expressions and silly antics seem forced and not funny.

The movie, which portrays marriage as nothing more than a business arrangement among the socially elite, is clever without a doubt. The idea and plot line are original and the absurdity of it all would make for an interesting screenplay, but the outline of the script is lacking in subplots, depth of character and overall organization. Writers and brothers Joel and Ethan Coen took eight years to finish Intolerable Cruelty (Joel directed, Ethan produced) and it appears to be time wasted.

If the audience is looking for a movie with surface plot lines and doesn’t mind checking their watch multiple times throughout the film then this is the movie to see. But if viewers are looking for something deep, or actually funny, then they should save their money. “Intolerable Cruelty” is definitely intolerable cruelty.