Synopsis
In the Deep South of Alabama from the Parchment Farm, a trio of incarcerated prisoners, Everett Walsh (George Clooney), Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson), Pete (John Turturro), are all shackled together at the ankles, and manage to go to break free. Everett Walsh, the mastermind behind the escape, encourage these men to help him get loose in exchange for a dividend of the sum of $1.2 million dollars that Everette claims to have attained the “hidden treasure” after knocking over an armored truck. They first seek refuge as outlaws at Walsh’s house, Pete’s cousin. Late into the night, as the men are plotting out their course, they are cornered in the barn by police. Walsh is there and says he turned them in because “they say there’s a Depression out there, and I gotta take care of me and mines.”
The police light the barn aflame to “smoke them out.” When one of the bounty hunters throw a flaming torch to cast on the men, Everette catches it and rebounds it back at them. Their police vehicle is aflame. The men run in the flaming building and in an unexpected turn of events, Walsh’s young son—who can barely see over the steering wheel— rams through the barn and gives the trio a lift off the property. He curses them as they leave, but the men manage to escape, taking the vehicle with them. They are in the midst of a squabble between Delmar and Everette, when they see singing people, fixated in a trance, serenading and walking towards a pond in the marsh. They are conducting baptisms by which the preachers proclaim the rebuking of all sins prior. Delmar impulsively charges his way through the baptismal processions, and the preacher baptizes him; Peter follows and gets baptized as well. Everette refuses and when asked about his lack of redemption, he replies—”I got bigger fish to fry.” He goes off into a tangent about God being pitted against man and all that the preacher says.
The men pick up an African American hitchhiker, Tommy Johnson, who is at a crossroads (where four lonely roads intersect—literally). He says that he just sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a guitar; Everette makes fun of him. When they ask about the devil, Tommy tells them that the devil is “as white as you folks…with hollow eyes…and a deep hollow voice.” He tells them about his life dream of traveling to the radio station to become a guitarist and make some money. The trio accompany him, and realizing that the radio-station owner is blind, lie and say that they are an African American spiritual singing group called the “Soggy Bottom Boys.” They’re paid their dues for the song, and spend the night sleeping in the forest away from their vehicle.
As they are up at night talking, they see in the distance (extreme long shot) of the backs of the Sheriff and his boys torching the shackle that the cars are parked next to. They think that they’ve got them cornered. The men run off into the woods, abandoning their car. The next day, they hitch a ride from George Nelson, a man whose literally raining money. The wind is blowing bills of money out of his car, dispersing them on the unpaved country roads. Only Delmar notices this, and they hitch a ride. Nelson asks them if they’re bad men and they say no.
They help him rob a bank. His M.O. is “I’m George Nelson, born to raise hell!” A few hours later, Nelson falls into a bout of depression. He lets the men keep all of the money that he’d gotten away with from the hit that day. ” He says that they’ll be seeing him again but he needs to go away now.
Everette steals some hair pomade and a car from a convenient store whose attendant is asleep. As they are driving down the road, they hear beautiful voices in the distance, and Pete urges and successfully convinces Everette to pull over. The serenading leads them to another lake, this time with three very busty women who are soaking wet from head to toe, singing “you, me, and the devil makes three” while washing their clothes at the bank. The women seduce the men and the screen goes black; the men have lost consciousness.
Moments later, the men are lightheaded and awake from their trance with confusion. They notice that Pete is gone. Near the breast pocket of his shirt, where the heart is, there is thumping. Pete says that they left his heart. The heart moves and thumps right out from under the shirt. A toad emerges. They think that the women, the “sirens” have taken Pete and turned him into a frog. Pete is devastated and keeps the toad in a box. He says that they need a sorcerer to help turn him back.They go to an upscale local restaurant and meet Big Dan, a bible salesman. Big Dan befriends them only to knock them nearly unconscious and steal all their money. He finds Pete the fog in a box and kills him by squeezing him with his bare hands. Delmar is distraught, and grieves for the second, and final, loss of his beloved friend.
Meanwhile, we see that the Sheriff’s got Pete and he is being punished and put back on Parchment Farm. The next day, as Delmar and Everett hitch a ride on the back of a pickup truck, they see the iconic light-and-dark-grey striped jumpsuits. As the camera pans with the passing of the truck, a man stares at them intently. Everette inquires to Delmar—-”Does Pete got a brother?” Delmar shakes his head no.
Everette goes back to his hometown, where he recognizes his three young daughters. He greets them warmly, and tell him that he is their father; the young girls deny this. They repeat the story that their father was killed by a train. He has been locked up for the past 7 years. His daughter informs them that their mother, Penny, will be wed the next day to a wealthy political campaign manager. Everette goes to confront Penny in the store, where he finds that she has an infant son. Penny stands by her assertion that he died in a train, that she is not his wife, and that she will be a married woman by the next day. Everett and Penny’s fiancé get into a tussle, getting Everett kicked out of the store.
Later that day, Everett and Delmar go to the movie theatre. In the midst of the movie, the prisoners from the Pennington farm join in at the theatre. Pete’s ghost whispers loudly from behind “do not seek the treasure.” After the initial shock wears off, they realize that it is Pete, in the flesh. He has returned to them. They help him break free from the jail that night. Pete confesses that he broke and told the authorities about the treasure. Everett is initially upset, but he has a confession of his own to make. He admits that there never was a treasure. Although he had initially told them he was an armored car robber, he was actually imprisoned for practicing law without a license. He wanted to escape because his wife sent him a letter telling him that she was marrying someone else; she wanted to win her back. He admits that the only way that he could get free was if he convinced Pete and Delmar to help him, because they were chained to either side of him. Pete is especially mad since he was initially so close to the end of his first sentence, having an added sentence because of his capture following escape. Pete and Everett wrestle each other right down off the roadway, down into the ditch, which commences to a Ku Klux Klan meeting. The men watch astonished, and notice that they’ve got their old pal (member of the Soggy Bottom Boys), Tommy, to be burned at the stake as their sacrifice. Everette, Delmar, and Pete intrude on the KKK meeting, burn the Confederate flag and manage to escape with Tommy in tow. The leader is steaming mad, complaining about it all the way to the bar, where he stuffs his KKK garment into his car before entering upon the pre-election festivities at the bar.
The Soggy Bottom Boys—Tommy (playing the guitar), Everett (singing solo), Pete and Delmar (singing the chorus and back up) perform a song while Everette takes the opportunity to woo his way back into his wife’s good graces. She is unreceptive. The group plays a second song, their smash hit “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” and the crowd goes wild. Vernon Stokes points out to the crowd that the Soggy Bottom Boys are integrated—he notices Tommy and he reprimands them in front of the crowd. Stokes, one of the chief political candidates confesses he belongs to a certain secret society (we know its the KKK but he dare not mention it by name) and that the Soggy Bottom Boys trampled their rituals of the lynch mob, desecrating a burning cross. The crowd is unreceptive they boo him, throw food at him, and toss him out of the bar.
The Soggy Bottom Boys perform an encore of their smash hit until the night commences. As the men leave the saloon, they see George Nelson the infamous self-acclaimed criminal, joyously being brought into the court to receive his death penalty sentence. He is happy that his name will go down in history. Meanwhile, Everett thinks that he and Penny are on good terms. She initially agrees to remarry him, but says that she won’t do it without the original ring, left at Emmett’s cabin in the woods. The next day, the boys venture their to reclaim Penny’s wedding ring so that she will marry Everett. As they approach the cabin, they encounter the sheriff and his posse who are fixing to execute the trio. They have three African Americans digging really deep shallow holes for the men’s graves. As the men sing spirituals, the Sheriff instructs them rather sardonically “Ya’ll should say y’all’s prayers right about now.”
The men, desperate, heed and say their prayers, brief, but aloud. In an unexpected turn of events, a great wave overcomes the entire procession, sweeping away the entire house and the sheriff and all his crew. The flooding for the dam has finally taken place. All of the trio, and Tommy, reunite, all clinging to separate pieces of Everett’s furniture. They somehow reclaim Penny’s ring from one of the bureau drawers that Tommy is clinging on to. Everette gives a speech about industrialization and the great changes that will alter the Deep South.
Everett returns to Penny, ring in tow. He is certain that she will marry him now. She says that he’s got the wrong ring; he asks her how this could be since she told him exactly where it was. She admits that she could’ve been mistaken, and the scene closes with Penny charging off after telling Everett that she will not marry him without the proper ring.