Matthew ShallueBurn After Reading, Forget After Watching
Brad as Chad
Yes! The Coens are back, just 10 months after they blew us all away with No Country For Old Men. Their latest is the comedy thriller confection Burn After Reading. It starts with the firing of low-level CIA analyst Osbourne (John Malkovich). The alcoholic Osbourne's wife (Tilda Swinton) is sleeping with serial philanderer Harry (George Clooney) while Osbourne writes a dreary memoir on his days at the CIA. A disc copy of the book and some financial records go missing at the local gym, where two dimwitted instructors (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) hatch a plot to extort money from Osbourne over its contents. Of course, it spirals out of control from there.
Like many Coen Brothers films, there's more going on than that, but telling you would spoil the fun. It's enough to know that the big name actors in this film, including the hilarious JK Simmons, are having the time of their lives playing complete idiots. Pitt is particularly memorable as the perenially bopping gym-junkie Chad.
The only warning I can give you, though, is not to expect too much in the way of story. Sure, there's plot aplenty, but as they sometimes do the Coens have let their characters run away with the film, meaning the ending is far less satisfying than it would have been had there been a point to all the sillyness.
Or maybe that is their point. The film has the slick opening sequence, the shadowy cinematography and even the soundtrack of a tense political thriller, but every character is a dimwit. Where a cinemagoer expects coherence, the Coens provide miscommunication, incorrect assumptions and downright stupidity. In their own way, perhaps they are providing a sly comment on the state of the US thanks to the guys in charge.
Or I could be stretching the point. Go, laugh, enjoy - but remember that this film is only there for the fun of it.
