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Burn After Reading (2008)

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Time Out rating

Average user rating

89 reviews

Synopsis

The Coens return to a lighter, glossier vein with this comedy drama about a missing CIA memoir. George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Tilda Swinton star.

Movie review

From Time Out London

With their hangdog mugs now nestled against the bosom of mainstream Hollywood, indie-crossover darlings the Coen brothers have concocted another of their Hawkesian screwball quickies in which an ensemble of beautiful A-listers merrily play the fool. Already a hit in the US, ‘Burn After Reading’ is a snappy, confident, lightly satirical and stridently mischievous entertainment that arrives on the back of their sand-blasted lament for times past, ‘No Country for Old Men’.

But while the tenor may have changed, the madcap template is very much in place. The rub: a disc containing the memoirs of recently dismissed, mid-level CIA operative Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich at his high-falutin, foul-mouthed best) floats into the hands of two gormless gym employees-turned-recreational grifters, plastic surgery-obsessed singleton Linda (Frances McDormand) and soft liberal airhead Chad (Brad Pitt, right). After an inevitably calamitous attempt at bribery (‘We’ve got your secret shit!’), the pair find themselves cack-handedly doorstepping the Russian embassy in search of a swifter pay-off. Fold into that a parallel story where George Clooney’s rubber-faced philanderer, Harry, tries to juggle semi-serious flings with Linda and Osbourne’s flamed-haired ex, Katie (Tilda Swinton).

Considering the Coens’ past form with intricately plotted farces (‘Raising Arizona’, ‘Fargo’, ‘The Big Lebowski’), this does feel effortless to the point that you might imagine they could have scribbled it on the back of a napkin between breakfast and brunch. Yet, beneath its deadpan façade, nimble direction and robust photography (care of Emmanuel Lubezki) lies a cheerily nihilistic (misanthropic even?) work which paints its characters as preening, self-obsessed, idiot savants who wear stupid clothes, habitually lie, misuse the internet for dating and wouldn’t know a conscience from a Coke bottle. Even at their lowest ebb (2004’s ‘The Ladykillers’) the brothers’ palpable affection for old movies injected some humanity into the overly sardonic proceedings; but here, even the movies are bad, as seen in their snarkily anodyne film-within-a-film, ‘Coming Up Daisy’.

The audience are, in the end, placed in the boots of JK Simmons’s flummoxed CIA chief who, having been nervously informed of the preceding antics, finds it tough to fathom how these people could have been so damn stupid. It’s possibly the Coens’ least romantic film, which makes the cynical tone a tough pill to swallow, but chances are that you’ll be too busy hooting and chuckling idiotically to notice.

Author: David Jenkins 2008-10-14 11:38:51

Time Out London Issue 1991, Oct 16 – 22, 2008

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User reviews of this film

Ben said...

Posted on Oct 20 2008 16:58 Haven't seen this film yet, but I intend to. This thread has been extremely helpful for making my decision; it's one of those times where I know I'm going to like the film because of the quality of the comments from those who didn't...

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Angry said...

Posted on Oct 20 2008 11:23 Took ages to get going. The only funny bits were Malkovich's rants and the interaction betwen his (previous) boss and the CIA big boss.

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rafe offer said...

Posted on Oct 20 2008 10:50 very disappointing. sure it was clever and i agree Brad Pitt was terrific but with all the hype this movie was neither very funny nor exciting. no-where near the quality of say Raising Arizona. see it on video.

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DV said...

Posted on Oct 20 2008 09:44 Excellent. The characters are well-rounded and funny. The ending is inspired. Sure, the set-up is a little long, but having not read a synopsis beforehand, I was intrigued, rather than bored. Not a film for those who like to be spoon-fed...and better than the Coen's oscar winner. I reckon. Go see it.

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johny snoop said...

Posted on Oct 20 2008 01:23 very overrated film. took an age to get going, was questioning walking out. Such was the snail pace. Was like a breath of fresh air to see brad pitts opening scene. wasnt even funny jokes in this film but juxtaposed against really convoluted photography and storyline made it seem really funny. The plot was simplistic and cobbled together awkwardly. The film was summed up with the ending, as though the film was half way through explaining itself.

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Philum Wotcha said...

Posted on Oct 19 2008 21:49 Absolutely brilliant. A real spoof that makes all the "real" spy movies seem like turgid turdies. Can't wait for the sequel.

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Alice said...

Posted on Oct 19 2008 12:36 Was really dissapointed by this film...

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terence said...

Posted on Oct 19 2008 11:36 "After an inevitably calamitous attempt at bribery..."
I think you mean 'blackmail'.

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carly said...

Posted on Oct 18 2008 23:00 Well, I liked it a lot and would recommend it without hesitation.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Oct 18 2008 02:58 BURNT turkey -it is shocking to see a great cast wasted by the coens in a superficial and mock-horror spoof which pretends to be HAWKS or capra and ends up abjectly boring.
it could never have worked as a satire on the current american milieu as it is overstylised ,incoherent and terribly pedantic writing.
still i liked clooney and swinton ,but pitt and mcdormand overacted to distraction and malkovich is plain awful -he persistently swears and we are supposed to laugh at the swear words .
as bad as leatherheads and a very burnt turkey with too many cooks and no meat on the bones ,coens need to seriously re-asess their scripts -it is a waste of time

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Leona said...

Posted on Oct 17 2008 17:25 Very dissapointing. didnt get the story line. left half way through

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Steve said...

Posted on Oct 16 2008 13:51 Absolutely hilarious. John Malkovich plays excellent indignant fury against Brad Pitt and Francis McDormand's blithering amateur scam merchants. Watch out for icy Tilda Swinton, even colder than as Sally in "The Beach", as at last she goes mainstream with Hollywood's finest. About time too.

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filum said...

Posted on Sep 06 2008 12:57 I saw Burn after Reading at this years film festival in Venice. What a disappointment!
The worst thing is the writing. The plot is horribly contrived without any clever twists or invention.The idiosyncracies of the characters fizzle out as the movie progresses and serve no purpose. The humour relys on crudity with a great deal of 'effing' which soon loses impact and makes the characters even less believable. There's a furniture design that will get the sixth form boys in stitches but it comes across as a desperate ploy to inject (pun intended) a comedy moment when genuine wit has deserted.
The bizzarely different characters fail to gel and the the use of unfortunate circumstance as a device to create situations fails to be convincing. I couldn't help wondering if the authors were trying to do a sort of 'Fish called Wanda' (which, by the way,you don't need me to tell you is brilliant) but got lost very early on. The movie has a confused feel to it as it struggles to assert what sort of a comedy it is trying to be. Is it 'black humour or'bitter/sweet' or 'cookie'. The actors give it their best shot but I got the impression they were having to dig deep into their undoubted professional abilities to try and 'fill in the gaps' of such a weak, incoherent script.

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stella said...

Posted on Aug 27 2008 16:07 ok

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