Friday
12Sep2008
Movie Review - 'Burn After Reading'
Friday, September 12, 2008 at 12:01AM Burn After ReadingStarring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and John Malkovich
Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Rated R
Despite their overdue acceptance
speeches at this year’s Academy Awards for No Country for Old Men,
Joel
and Ethan Coen
don’t really make moralistic contemporary Westerns and they sure don’t co-opt
another writer’s dialogue. Instead, the brothers have carved out their niche
over the past two decades by telling peculiar stories punctuated with an
identifiable brand of absurdity.
Not to take anything away from their
Best Picture winner, but No Country is atypical of their other great
work, like Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother Where Art
Thou. Though Anton Chigurh is definitely strange, for example, he’s not an
oddball in the mold of H.I. McDonough from Raising Arizona.
Therefore,
Burn After
Reading might seem downright light and amusing by comparison to
No Country, but it features more of those idiosyncrasies we’ve come to
expect from the Coens over the years. There are a lot of structural similarities
to Fargo in particular, which can never be a bad thing. Surprisingly,
given the multiple storylines converging here, watching Burn After Reading
doesn’t require a lot of effort, because the events unfold so cleanly and
directly.
After Osbourne Cox (John
Malkovich) is demoted by the CIA, he quits in favor of writing his
memoirs, which he vows will be explosive. But the memoirs fall into the wrong
hands, namely those of health club employees Chad (Brad
Pitt) and Linda (Frances
McDormand). Immediately, Chad and Linda decide to blackmail Cox
because they think he’s pretty high up in the intelligence community. Meanwhile,
a self-absorbed sex addict Linda has met online (George
Clooney) is also seeing Cox’s cold, manipulative wife (Tilda
Swinton). It’s a tangled web.
The Coens have written this script in
such a way that the big stars, arguably the most recognizable cast they’ve ever
had, are their own distinct points on the map - Malkovich shares one scene with
Clooney and two with Pitt, one of those on the phone, while Swinton never
interacts with anyone but Malkovich and Clooney. Lesser filmmakers might want to
connect these stories even more, but the Coens do exactly what is required to
propel their story and nothing more.
Reader Comments (5)
Nice.
It's not out in my territory yet, so I can't add anything useful.
I did react a bit to the statement that No Country was a bird apart from the Coens' other films. I don't quite agree. To me it has many of the best components from their catalogue, except one: laughter. It's funny in its way - but unless you're on medication, you shouldn't be laughing all the way through it.
Perhaps they saved the laughter for Burn After Reading? I hope so.
If you didn't know any better, you wouldn't watch No Brother and think it has a real Coen aesthetic. But I think if you watch Burn After Reading, even without knowing who made it, you'd lump it in with Fargo and O Brother.
The Man Who Wasn't There is also a different.
As was Barton Fink.
Their overall tone are not too different from No Country for Old Men.
One clear similarity between those those 3 films is endings, which to some are abrupt and enigmatic, while others find them perfectly symmetrical.
i've never not liked a coen film, except for 'blood simple'.
this one was great fun, all the way through... with some excellent GASP! moments....
I am impressed by this review. I have been dealing with so many people who are so ready to dismiss this film as the second Lady Killers. But for the life of me I can't see what the problem is. The film has zany characters who could have easily delved into cliche charicature status, but they manage to all be very fresh and strangely likable. The plot, as you mentioned, could have been convoluted and impossible to follow, but instead there is never a moment where I feel lost. And if the film isn't always funny, it makes up for it by being funnier than expected at parts where it could have gotten away with a simple chuckle.
The Coen brothers make good flicks. Sorry critics, but it's just the case. Knock off the sour grapes and let yourself enjoy the show.