Burn After Reading Review

A comedy/thriller crossover film that has strong performances across the board from Pitt to Malkovich.  It seems as though the Coen brothers created this film just for the joy of it and its a movie about nothing but appearing to be about a lot of things.  Going backwards and forwards at the same time talking about "the Russians" or harking on about writing a memoir.

The story involves a demoted government worker (Malkovich) who finds himself the target of an extortion scheme by two gym workers, brilliantly played by Frances McDormand (looking to fund her plastic surgery ops to reinvent herself) and Brad Pitt (a high-energy, fitness trainer who lands himself way in over his head). The fun loving romp soons turns on its head and gets dark.

As usual, the Coens' dialog is a great treat. When a co-worker points to Malkovich's alcohol problems as a reason for his demotion, Malkovich replies, "You're a Mormon. Next to you we all have a drinking problem." And as usual in their flims, there's a clash between high and low brow. Malkovich's pronunciations of "mem-wahhh" for "memoir" had me belly laughing, and his correction of Pitt's mistaken "report" for "rapport" propels a conflict between classes and types.  Pitt is fabulous in his role and plays a somewhat innocent fitness trainer who cant keed still long enough to think.  Coming out with such lines as ''You think it's a Schwinn!''  and ''Put up a note? "Highly classified shit found: Raw intelligence shit, CIA shit?" Hello, anybody lose their secret CIA shit? I don't think so!''.  They are delivered with such bluntness that makes Pitt really likable.  

You really shouldn't know anything about the plot or how it unfolds before to seeing it, as this is a film which is far more intricately-plotted than most are giving it credit for.  It's one of those movies where you really shouldn't be laughing (for ethical reasons) but are, and it will have you laughing for basically the entirety of the film after the opening fifteen minutes or so, which are rough in comparison to the rest of the film, and to be honest the only thing that keeps this film from being absolutely brilliant and the Coens' best movie since "Lebowski".  It's functional, well-shot, and well-directed, but the writing and acting are the main attractions here.

The final scene may well be one of the best I have seen in a long time.  It just about sums up the film, a farcical cock-up of events that seems to comedic to be true.