Burn After Reading

Written and Directed: Ethan and Joel Cohen

Starring: John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Tilda Swinton

Release: September 12, 2008

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From the previews I saw in either the theatre or on television, I was extremely excited to see this film.  Visually and comically it grabbed me, and the cast list alone should have powered the pistons in my (or my friend’s) car to the box office.  As a rule, I try not to read many reviews before I go to see a new film, but I did take a look at the Onion’s A.V. Club review, which is usually a good indicator for me because for the most part I’m more forgiving than the writers there.  In this case, I am not.

The Coen brothers are well-known for their comic violence, excellent direction, and any actor would sign on with them likely without even looking at a script.  This very well may have been what the lot in Burn After Reading did.  I am a huge fan of Ms McDermond and a moderate fan of Mr Clooney.  Both cinema giants lost big time trying to carry this lead balloon.  McDermond went through every moment of her on screen appearance racking up the amount of ridiculous face contortions she could muster up.  She certainly wasn’t the amusing Northern Territory cop I so well remember from Fargo.  She became, for lack of a better term, a one-(white)woman minstrel show.  Clooney executed the neurotic ex-Marshall quite well, but failed to expand beyond that.  Perhaps this was the brothers Coen’s point, but it failed to speak to the viewer.

There was not, in my opinion, one single major character to identify with.  The zany, idiotic Pitt character is frustrating; Malkovich is a broken, maniacal man who I lost hope for in the first five minutes of his performance; McDermond’s character along with Clooney’s is despicable; and we’re left with a myriad of misfits who can’t find their place in normal society, hell-bent on their own personal gain.  This fits all but one: Richard Jenkins as a frustrated, powerless fitness club manager.  Unfortunately, we don’t get to know much about him and he winds up being a lost cause by the credit roll anyway.  I felt extremely disconnected from what occurred throughout the film and was left wondering, ‘Why is this all going on in the first place?’

Precisely that question is what received the most amount of laughs at the theatre.  J.K. Simmons plays the CIA supervisor who is cut to at awkward times to simply run the long forgotten ’show so far’ bit of Monty Python fame.  His part in this clusterfuck of a script was to say, ‘All right, so what’s going on?  I don’t get it.’  Indeed, the absurdity of the plot is what is funny, but it doesn’t save this disconnected film.

Indeed, the Coen brothers have dropped the ball on this one.  However, rent it on a rainy day, you’ll get a couple belly-laughs.  You have to see it just to say you’ve seen the latest Coen brothers’ flick, but please don’t spend $11.50 to see this disappointment.

Rating: D-