Screwball comedy for older teens and adults.

Here's an anomaly: a comedy about smart people.

The Coens do an efficient job of stamping their signature grotesquerie on sumptuous Beverly Hills and Las Vegas settings and ladling on gallows humor and malice, sometimes with the verve of early Robert Zemeckis.

There are moments of inspired, slapstick brilliance, and Clooney works his socks off, but it lacks a hard centre and plot keeps racing ahead of character.