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Burn After Reading (2008)
Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Synopsis
In the Coen brothers' latest, a dimwit (Brad Pitt) finds a disc containing CIA secrets and attempts to blackmail the agent (John Malkovich) it belongs to. George Clooney, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton get caught up in the ensuing mayhem.
Movie review
From Time Out New York
Let’s say you’re the Coen brothers and you’ve delivered the elegiac, majestic No Country for Old Men. You don’t follow it up with a movie that’s equally serious; rather, you revert back to knucklehead-humor mode, a Tolstoy-to–Tex Avery sucker punch that’s worked wonders for the siblings before (from Blood Simple and Raising Arizona to Fargo and The Big Lebowski). You still have to make an effort to produce something of quality, however, which has apparently slipped the Coens’ minds this time around. Granted, this tale of a former CIA analyst (Malkovich) and what he calls “the league of morons” blackmailing him would seem slight and slapdash coming after most of the brothers’ other works. But the transition from Oscar-winning masterpiece to this mess is especially depressing. Burn After Reading is a disposable lark, and it’s treated by the filmmakers as such; Forget After Seeing would be a far more honest title.
It’s not a total loss: You still get Frances McDormand spitting out primo rapid, vapid patter, and Brad Pitt sporting a pompadour that ranks between H.I. McDunnough and Barton Fink’s impressively vertical ’dos. After that, however, the pickings are slim. George Clooney’s lunkheaded lothario continues a curious losing streak with the Coens (why do their collaborations never jell?), and the attempt to blend Pakula-era paranoia with cheap gallows humor simply devolves into atonal anarchy. At the end, one peripheral character asks another, “What did we learn here? I guess we learned not to do [that] again!” Amen.
Author: David Fear
Time Out New York Issue 676: September 11 - 17, 2008
User reviews of this film
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- alan nocker said...
- Posted on Nov 13 2009 08:03 i have seen the film twice and two weeks since my last viewing am still smiling. Brad Pitt is hilarious. his face in the wardrobe in his final scene still makes me crack up. The reviewer needs to see it again. The Coens are great.
- Report as inappropriate
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- Knock Off Nigel said...
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Posted on Oct 26 2008 05:10
Ossie Cox (John Malkovich) is an inept intelligence analyst for an inept CIA, he's married to a hard nosed business bitch who aims to divorce him after the loss of his job. Fitness trainer Linda Litkze (Frances McDormand) desperately wants to pump up her flat chested image but doesn't have the cash
until she stumbles on a disk containing some of
Ossie's ineffectual CIA analysis.
Litkze relentlessly tries to sell the disk to the highest bidder; dragging reluctant work mates into an achingly involved and very funny plot with mystified Russians, a confused CIA and random divorce lawyers. The hapless Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and the over sexed Harry Pfarrer (a bearded George Clooney) add style and pulling power to a clever comedy that entertains long after you leave the movie house - the closing scenes of the CIA trying to work out what the hell went down is priceless. - Report as inappropriate
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- Roger said...
- Posted on Oct 24 2008 20:05 Entertaining up to a point...then the Coen's decided they were done and gave us a crappy ending
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- R. H. said...
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Posted on Sep 15 2008 22:10
Dear Mr. Fear,
You forgot to mention what exactly it was about the film that made it so "disposable". Your review seems more like an exercise in attack rather than actual criticism. And maybe the title and the last line are a clue to the self awareness of the film rather than an oversight by the creators. You know, I bet your a big Russell Crow fan...
Sincerely - Report as inappropriate
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- RvB said...
- Posted on Sep 12 2008 13:15 You called it, David. Remember that Mel Brooks comment about how comedy is what happens to you and tragedy is what happens to me? The people in this movie were all "thems"--there wasn't anyone to identify with because there was so much shticking going on.
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- Claudine said...
- Posted on Sep 10 2008 21:20 How in god's name could the TONY reviewer think that George Clooney wasn't wonderful in Brother Where Art Thou? I don't get it...
- Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast: Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich full cast
Rated: R
Duration: 96 mins
US Release: Sep 12 2008
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