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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 668
Released: December 21, 2008 |
| Our Price: $4.74 |
| Used Price: $1.99 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 23-DEC-2008
Media Type: DVD
Description of Burn After Reading:
After the dark brilliance of No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading may seem like a trifle, but few filmmakers elevate the trivial to art quite like Joel and Ethan Coen. Inspired by Stansfield Turner's Burn Before Reading, the comically convoluted plot clicks into gear when the CIA gives analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) the boot. Little does Cox know his wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton, riffing on her Michael Clayton character), is seeing married federal marshal Harry (George Clooney, Swinton's Clayton co-star, playing off his Syriana role). To get back at the Agency, Cox works on his memoirs. Through a twist of fate, fitness club workers Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt in a pompadour that recalls Johnny Suede) find the disc and try to wrangle a "Samaratin tax" out of the surly alcoholic. An avid Internet dater, Linda plans to use the money for plastic surgery, oblivious that her manager, Ted (The Visitor's Richard Jenkins), likes her just the way she is. Though it sounds like a Beltway remake of The Big Lebowski, the Coen entry it most closely resembles, this time the brothers concentrate their energies on the myriad insecurities endemic to the mid-life crisis--with the exception of Chad, who's too dense to share such concerns, leading to the funniest performance of Pitt's career. If Lebowski represented the Coen's unique approach to film noir, Burn sees them putting their irresistibly absurdist stamp on paranoid thrillers from Enemy of the State to The Bourne Identity. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Burn After Reading (Click for larger image)
Burn After Reading Reviews:
lolling the onestars 
2009-11-24 - I just wanted to point out that every single complaint that the one-star reviews dole out are just icing on the cake as far as me totally loving this movie. The characters had no depth? The plot was too amorphous? THAT WAS THE POINT FOLKS. The characters are examples of typical character flaws that are variations on stupidity. You're supposed to enjoy their lives falling apart. I sure as hell did.
Plot is so fast paced I had no time to think. But I did laugh a lot. I loved it!
2009-11-11 - I had never heard of this 2008 Coen Brothers comedy. If it did play the theaters it must have had a short run. And I don't remember publicity of any kind. But it was on cable TV and when it listed the cast of characters, I knew I had to see it.
First of all, there is Frances McDormand. I've loved her performances ever since I saw Fargo years ago. In this film she plays the role of an aging gym instructor who doesn't have enough money for the cosmetic surgery which she is sure will help her land a man. She's looking for love through the internet and the men she meets are all losers. Another gym instructor, and her friend, is Brad Pitt, playing the part of a rather dense golden haired trainer. One day they just happen to find a computer disk which looks like it has some secret CIA information on it. The disk actually belongs to John Malkovich, who has been fired from the CIA and is writing a book about his experiences. Whether the so-called secret information on the disk is actually real is always a question mark. Malkovich is married to Tilda Swinton, a thin society type who is having an affair with George Clooney. Clooney is quite a womanizer. Even though he thinks he is happily married, there are several women in his life. Frances McDormand becomes one of them.
The plot is so faced paced that I had no time to think. But I did laugh a lot. Every scene is stretched to its outrageous edge. There's gunplay and murder throughout and most of the characters meet their end in some serendipitously outrageous way. The conclusion is fun and satisfying even though most of the characters have been killed off.
I am not one for comedies. But I loved this one. Highly recommended.
Just Fargo in DC 
2009-11-04 - This movie is little more than Fargo in DC. A collection of disfunctional, self-destructive misfits whose lives manage to cross in various ways. Thought the movie had potential, but after an hour it was clear where we were headed. We saw it all in Fargo. Did not care to see it again.
A Quick Moving Tangle of a Farce of a Spy Spoof
2009-10-11 - This is a convoluted action comedy with a fair amount of blood and gratuitous violence distributed through several dysfunctional romances and a plot on the part of a couple of physical-trainers to engage in international espionage. It is pretty funny. It goes around and around but I don't think anybody actually won. Several people in the story who are trying to figure it all out from the beginning through to the end are left scratching their heads, knowing everything that happened and still wondering what it was all about. Invite someone over, make popcorn.
lightweight Coen fun 
2009-10-03 - The Coens have done better (their best days seem behind them -- see my review of "No Country for Old Men"), but "Burn After Reading" is still a clever and entertaining film.
It's not surprising so many viewers -- including too many reviewers, who ought to know better -- didn't like it, because it's little more than clever. As the brothers Coen admit, it was written specifically for some of their favorite actors, so you have to appreciate it on the level of an exercise in great acting.
Otherwise, there isn't much of a plot -- or a point. Just a bunch of foolish/dumb people getting into trouble. * This is also true of "The Big Lebowski", a much better, genuine-masterpiece film. Why it worked there and not here (just as "No Country for Old Men" failed to repeat the success of "Fargo", a virtually identical film) is not clear. **
Something should be said for Carter Burwell's excellent (and minimal) score. Though "Burn After Reading" is basically a "black-screwball" comedy, he scores it as a drama/suspense story. The main theme seems to be borrowed from "The Isle of the Dead", which seems appropriate.
If you're a Coen brothers fan, ignore the critics. You'll probably enjoy "Burn After Reading". But it's one of their lesser efforts.
PS: Am I the only viewer who noted that one of the victim's feet were splayed in a way that suggested the corpse of the Wicked Witch of the East?
* The issue of whether the Coens' tendency to portray human beings -- especially American human beings -- as fundamentally stupid will eventually be perceived as A Profound Comment on Society or self-serving elitism, is at least a decade or two away from being resolved.
** The reason is probably that "Fargo" and "Lebowski" had highly engaging central characters you got involved with.
