Terrific production and a good comedic performance by George Clooney can't save curiously detached, occasionally clumsy quasi-comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen. Depression-era road tale hearkens back to yesterday with three escaped chain-gang prisoners seeking a hidden fortune, and inadvertently becoming country music stars in the process! The film meanders along but never builds any momentum. It does get a big boost from Clooney's charismatic, Gableesque mugging, and also from the art direction and T-Bone Burnett's lively music. Otherwise, the screenplay (by the Coens) is seriously lacking in humor and interest, supporting cameos by John Goodman and Holly Hunter fail to add any lift, and the second-half of the movie slides precariously into self-indulgence. ** from ****