When a computer disk belonging to recently resigned and embittered CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is found in the ladies toilet at a Hardbodies gym in Washington, co-workers Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt) believe they have a rare chance to make big money selling it back to him.

Meanwhile, womaniser and ex-Treasury agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) is having an affair with Osborne's wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), and trawls the internet for other vulnerable women - including Linda, by chance, who is insecure about her body, which is why she wants the money to pay for various cosmetic procedures.

Yet there is a man who finds her attractive, her Hardbodies manager Ted (Richard Jenkins).

As she and the hapless airhead Chad try to flog off the disc to anyone who'll buy it, they stumble about causing endless trouble for everyone, not least themselves.

If you 've seen The Big Lebowski, or O Brother Where art Thou? you'll get the idea, although this time the fraternal filmmakers have added a new nihilism-tinged scepticism to the idiotic proceedings.

The characters make the most moronic moves to devastating consequence while Carter Burwell's weighty score washes over biting scenes of belly laughs, in a manner reminiscent of his work in Fargo.

There's an amazing collection of characters interacting in this comedy crime caper teetering on the blackside.

The CIA superior who learns of the film's events (always second-hand and sometimes along with the viewer) doesn't know what to make of it, and why would he?

This is the first Coen film in almost 20 years not shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins, yet new guy, Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men), has created as visceral and emotionally fraught a high-definition cartoon as any since Barton Fink.

There is satire aplenty here, comedy, relationships, and plain crazy fun as intelligence gathering characters come face to face with bumbling amateur blackmailers.