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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 1451
Released: December 21, 2008 |
| Our Price: $4.69 |
| Used Price: $1.99 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 12/19/2008 Run time: 96 minutes Rating: R
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:
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.
Don't burn after watching
2009-09-23 - Like "Fargo", the Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading" is one of their occasional productions that combines farce with drama, with neither aspect compromising or diluting the other. While at first glance everyone here strongly defines themselves- in that very American way of looking at things- by their jobs (intelligence agent, gym employee, academic, etc.), the movie eventually makes it clear that we're all ultimately defined by our desires, lusts, and personal quirks. It's these latter aspects of the characters that make them pursue increasingly crazy, though sadly still quite believeable, actions.
Frances McDormand is particularly good, both hilarious and chilling, as the gym employee who will do absolutely anything, without a shred of guilt (or even awareness that she should at least CONSIDER feeling guilty), to secure the cosmetic surgery she desperately wants. Brad Pitt and George Clooney are terrific, too, with both again demonstrating some serious comic chops.
Both light and cutting, "Burn After Reading" is upper-tier Coen Brothers work and not to be missed. The movie looks super sharp on standard DVD and features a handful of interesting behind-the-scenes extras, including generous interview material with both Joel and Ethan Coen.
We abandoned the theater 1/2 way thru show and others followed... 
2009-09-12 - Utterly empty plot that aside from the weakly interesting characterizations portrayed by Brad Pitt and George Clooney, leave the film just so horribly devoid of any potential entertainment value it could quite possibly be the worst piece of crap I've ever seen. Right behind this garbage is the movie Babylon in negative entertainment value.
I was with family at the theater to see BaR and couldn't tolerate viewing it past the first hour -- I just kept hoping it would improve but it got so nauseatingly bad to the point we felt we had to leave. I noticed we were the first to abandon our movie seats but several others followed suit soon afterward. I just can't believe someone made the effort to produce this. It comes off like it's trying to emulate Fargo in lightheartedness but that's deceptive and almost immediately spirals down into the most gutless, distasteful and utterly disgusting waste of time. I think this movie helps me get why other nations think our country is such a horrid place that it needs to be obliterated, if they are to believe this is what our country finds entertaining...
