Barton Fink review

 Number 548 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Coen Brothers' black-comedy Barton Fink.

Barton Fink (John Turturro) is an aspiring screen-writer who finally gets his big break in Hollywood. However, the true reality of Hollywood screen-writing is far removed from the dream. Jon Polito and John Goodman co-star.

In the pantheon of Coen Brothers' films, I would rank this as one of their lower-tiered efforts. The brothers are well-known for their surreal films like Oh brother, wherefore art thou or The Big Lebowski, as well as more straightforward films like Miller's Crossing and No Country for Old Men. Barton Fink seemed to straddle both worlds without really landing in either.

Barton soon becomes mixed-up in a murder which sees him strike up an unusual friendship with the gregarious Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) which, in fairness, does finish in a fiery and dreamscape climax. Yet the earlier parts of the film deal with more grounded ideas like Barton trying to write a script to appease the big-shot Hollywood producer Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner.) If the film could have been surreal or straightforward, I would have been okay with it, but not both.

John Turturro and Jon Polito also starred in Miller's Crossing - a prohibition-era gangster film. Both of them were terrific bringing frenetic energy to the role. They were memorable. Here I can't say the same. Granted Jon Polito was only a supporting character - a lackey to Michael Lerner, but he didn't bring the same energy to the role. Neither did Turturro. They played the roles with restraint when excess would have been better.

That summarises my criticism of this film really: it tried to be too many things and ended up being hardly anything.