Movie Review: Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading is the return of the Coen brothers to comedy after winning the Oscar for the dark manhunt drama No Country For Old Men. After such a dark turn it's nice to see the Coens just having fun. However audiences shouldn't assume that means that the darker edges the pair are known for are gone. As is typical of Coen comedies there is an abundance of dispicable people doing some very shady things. So while there's plenty to laugh about it's not exactly a light and cheery brand of comedy, but then that's never really been the Coens' M.O. anyway.

Burn After Reading is a tale of interwoven idiots. There's the recently fired and alcoholic CIA analyst Osbourne Cox, played by John Malkovich (Changeling), and his emotionally frigid wife Katie, as played by Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton). Her frigidness is only emotional as she's busy banging a treasury agent Harry, played by George Clooney (Ocean's Thirteen) who's also a chronic adulterer. Then there's Linda, portrayed by Frances McDormand (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day), a personal trainer who desperately wants a number of cosmetic surgeries. Her dim-witted co-worker Chad, played with manic energy by Brad Pitt (Inglourious Basterds) manages via dumb luck to come across a disk with an in-progress memoir and raw CIA data belonging to Osbourne. Out of greed and idiocy Linda and Chad try to blackmail Osbourne while Linda is also becoming a serial online dater oblivious to the heartfelt advances of her boss, played by Richard Jenkins (The Visitor). Due to the overriding selfishness and evident low IQ of every character involved things just get more convoluted and ridiculous as time and events progress. The story is not nearly as hard to follow on the screen as it may seem on paper. While the events may be complicated the characters aren't and that simplifies things for the viewer in a positive way.

For Burn After Reading the Coens assembled a mixed cast made up of actors they've worked with frequently (Clooney and McDormand) and high-profile actors they haven't used before (Malkovich and Pitt). Everybody turns in a good performance even though most of these characters don't have much depth. The characters are pretty much all shallow and stupid by design yet the actors manage to never let them be boring. While all of the actors are as reliable as you would expect, most of them aren't particularly memorable. Though one has to wonder if that's an issue of the acting or just the way the characters have been written. Pitt gives what is probably the most memorable performance as the biggest idiot in a movie that actually has stiff competition for that title. Pitt doesn't get to flex his comedic muscles often. They get used lightly in the Ocean's Eleven series in the bantor he has with other characters, but he hasn't been this manic since 1995's Twelve Monkeys and it's great to see him so wild. Ultimately though the most enjoyable performance is also one of the shortest. J. K. Simmons (of the Spider-man series) plays a CIA head receiving updates on the various activities of the other characters. Basically he's the only person able to see everything going on (the other characters are too wrapped up in themselves to see the bigger picture). As a result he gets to be the voice of the audience in his shear disbelieve of the idiocy on display and it makes for some subdued but hilarious comedy moments.

While Burn After Reading is frequently funny and often biting it ultimately doesn't connect that way that some of the Coens' earlier comdies have. The reason for the disconnect is probably a direct result of there being no real likable characters. While many of the characters are quite fun to watch you'll probably find that you're not actually rooting for any of them. In fact you'd be hard pressed to even feel sorry for any of them as their problems mount. Ultimately they're all selfish idiots (well there's one nice guy but he's a wuss) and while their antics may amuse it keeps the audience at a distance because you can't really invest emotionally in characters like these. Scummy characters (either metaphorically or literally scummy) are nothing new to the Coen brothers' work but in films such as The Big Lebowski or Fargo there was at least one character that the audience could pull for. Given the kind of story that the Coens are telling it's perfectly understandable that none of these characters are particularly likable, but even if it's justified it still causes an emotional distance. The end result is enjoyable but doesn't leave you with much once the lights come up.

Burn After Reading is definitely the Coens in their stride but not quite at their best. The laughs are there, the performances are fun, and the story is certainly unique. However, the lack of any real likeable hero keeps it from the level of their best comedies such as The Big Lebowski, O' Brother Where Art Thou, and Raising Arizona. I must admit that many of these faults are ultimately comparative because the Coens have such a solid track record. Burn After Reading will certainly bring out its fair share of hearty laughs for those whose humor skews to the dark side.

Final Score: 3.5 out of 5