The film is littered with gratuitous attempts to mock American character flaws without it ever being very funny. The use of big name, talented actors only seems to degrade the film even more. Even Brad Pitt, the only one not to be typecast, although funny, becomes a boring act once you get over the initial laugh. The only poignant scene is where John Malkovich’s character Osbourne Cox has a heart-to-heart with his disabled father on board his yacht. Sadly, however, this promising scene and storyline is dismissed in favour of the bombast, slap stick, ‘silly faces’ of Clooney, Pitt and the rest.

What had promised to be a dark, eclectic and eccentric comedy – something I think the Coen Brothers can do very well – turned out to be a mixture of tenuously linked stories of conspiracy and adultery which all tumble together in a rushed conclusion, where you are left feeling that the editor has shrugged his shoulders at the question: “how shall we end this?” and said “I dunno lets just write ‘and to conclude they all died!’”