Grade: A-

Verdict: A foot-stomping riff on Homer, as only the Coen brothers could do it.

Details: Starring George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson. Rated PG-13 for violence and profanity. One hour, 43 minutes.

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Review: The Coen brothers transform "The Odyssey" into a cornpone, crackerjack adventure--with the emphasis on cracker--in their deep-fried "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

The crafty prankster filmmakers ("Fargo," "Raising Arizona") move Homer's epic action from the Greek isles of the B.C. era to the Delta byways of Mississippi, circa 1937. Here, the seafaring warrior becomes an on-the-lam jailbird named Everett Ulysses McGill (George Clooney), rushing through the Southern landscape shackled (at least for a while) to fellow chain-gang escapees Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro) and Delmar O'Donnel (Tim Blake Nelson).

A dapper felon who sleeps with a hairnet and is particular about his brand of pomade, Ulysses is the leader, promising his pals he'll lead them to the stashed loot from a bank robbery, hidden in a home slated to be flooded for a dam being built by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Played by Clooney with a keen mix of suavity and haplessness, Ulysses isn't as smart as he thinks he is, but he's a genius compared to Pete and Delmar. They're a couple of cons with the combined brainpower of a boll weevil (Turturro and Nelson are hysterical in their dimness).

The title of "O Brother" comes from the Preston Sturges 1941 classic "Sullivan's Travels," in which it was the name of the movie the director wanted to make. There's more of Sturges here than just that, though. The Coens (director and co-writer Joel and co-writer Ethan) pay homage to the cantankerous wordplay of the late writer-director and to his pleasure in creating small-town characters who pop off the screen.

"O Brother" conjures up a fantastical view of the Deep South, drawn more from folk tales and American cultural icons than from Homer's verses. Though they start their movie with the opening lines of "The Odyssey" projected on-screen, the Coens reportedly never actually read the poem.

Even so, Homer's invocation to "sing in me, muse" gets a literal reading here: Ulysses and his cronies inadvertently become country music superstars after they record a tune in order to make some quick cash at a radio station. The movie is so full of numbers that it verges on being a musical. The selections range from gutbucket, bluesy laments to old-timey bluegrass, allowing the Coens to harness the vocal talents of Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and others, under the musical supervision of T-Bone Burnett.

The film's farcical landscape allows for the appearance of bipolar bank robber Baby Face Nelson (Michael Badalucco), his getaway car streaming banknotes. Homer's Cyclops shows up in the form of an eye-patched Bible thumper (John Goodman), while the Sirens take the shape of a trio of beauties bathing their clothes in a creek.

On the road, Ulysses and his gang pick up a hitchhiking blues musician named Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King), who (like real-life namesake Robert Johnson) claims he's sold his soul to the devil in order to play music. And yeah, the devil pops up, too, in the guise of a flinty lawman (Daniel Von Bargen) wearing sinister sunglasses.

The tone here is closer to the wacky Road Runner velocity of "Raising Arizona" than the deadpan moral complexities of "Fargo." But unlike the Coens' out-of-control work in "The Big Lebowski," the jokes and images here are cut from the same cloth. Mixing dark humor with high spirits, the brothers take some wild risks that pay off surprisingly well, like a nighttime Ku Klux Klan rally that manages to be spooky, beautiful and funny all at once (the filmmakers throw in a "Wizard of Oz" joke when you least expect it).

Cinematographer Roger Deakins shoots the movie with a fine eye for the lonesome sprawl of the Mississippi Delta; digital tweaks give the images a dazzling golden hue that seems to be autumn distilled. The strong supporting cast includes Charles Durning as a governor who publicly glad-hands but privately fumes; Holly Hunter as Ulysses' pert ex-wife; and countless extras chosen for their memorable, Walker Evans-style faces.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service