DVD Review: “Leaves of Grass”

Tulsa-born and bred actor/writer/director Tim Blake Nelson is probably best known for playing Delmar in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” the Coen brothers' Depression-era riff on “The Odyssey.”

The Oscar-winning sibling team's penchant for eccentric characters, literate dialogue and tragicomic action undoubtedly influenced Nelson's latest writing and directing effort, “Leaves of Grass.”

Delightfully brainy and deliberately unconventional, “Leaves of Grass” boasts an award-caliber performance by Edward Norton, who plays twins as divergent in lifestyles as they are identical in looks. The two-time Oscar nominee's double-duty turn frames an ambitious story that abruptly swerves from absurdly funny to unflinchingly violent while exploring philosophy, religion and family ties.

The film opens in the classroom of Bill Kincaid (Norton), a successful philosophy professor at Brown University. He has put his humble upbringing in southeast Oklahoma firmly in the past, until he gets the call that his marijuana-dealing twin, Brady (Norton again), has been murdered by crossbow.

When he returns to Little Dixie, Bill learns that news of his brother's death has been greatly exaggerated. Brady and best pal Bolger (Nelson) have lured Bill back because they need help dealing with a testy Tulsa drug kingpin (Richard Dreyfuss).

Bill's homecoming also involves encounters with his hippie mother (Susan Sarandon), an enticing poet/high school English teacher/catfish noodling champ (Keri Russell) and a desperate Jewish orthodontist (Josh Pais).

Nelson cultivates an entertaining hybrid that's part comedy, part drug thriller and part family drama.

Bonus features: Making-of featurette and commentary.

— Brandy McDonnell