Burn After Reading

When the Coen brothers are at the top of their game, they really can’t be beat. Movies like “Millers Crossing“, “Fargo” and “No Country For Old Men” have become modern day classics, while some of their other flicks, like “Intolerable Cruelty” and “The LadyKillers” kind of come and go as questionable failures. While “Burn After Reading” won’t be held in such high regard as their other movies, it is one of their most funniest and complicated efforts.

The plot isn’t worth getting into, and is really kind of pointless, it’ll only confuse things, it’s almost as if the Coens just thought up some of the most selfish, idiotic, and just plain unlikable people they could think of and wrapped them all up in a satiric spy thriller. While it may certainly seem like that on the surface, there really is much more going on here. When all is said and done this is a terribly sad movie, one that has you laughing one minute and truly astonished at how these characters on screen are just ripping each other apart. I found myself leaving the theater angry at what I’d just seen and that’s what makes the Coen brothers two of the best filmmakers we have with us today. Even when they’re dealing with seemingly light weight, shallow material they squeeze more out of it than you expect.

But make no mistake, the movie is downright hilarious and had me laughing so hard at some points that tears were coming out of my eyes. Simply- when you have such amazing and loopy performances by the likes of George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, and Brad Pitt, all bouncing off each other, it’s hard not to get caught up in the antics. Brad Pitt as Chad is especially fun to watch, he plays a fitness freak with a terrible haircut and a huge heart, he’s constantly bouncing around, constantly on the move, he also has the brains of a complete idiot. When he narrows his eyes in an effort to intimidate John Malkovichs character, it is completely ridiculous and completely pathetic. Pitt as well as Clooney have no problem having fun and making fools out of themselves. Watching them tear into these roles is incredibly entertaining. When you see what Clooney has been whipping up in his basement, I dare you not to crack up laughing.

In the end though, it seems like Richard Jenkins is the only true sympathetic character in the movie. He plays a guy who only wants a woman to love him and when he gives into the stupidity of it all, he’s the one character I felt anything for. At the end of the movie, when all the characters have clashed and the dust is settling it’s J.K. Simmons, best known as Juno's dad and Spider-Mans boss, who shows up and asks, "What did we learn?" The answer is nothing, but of course that is ultimately up to the audience to decide.

While this is not a groundbreaking work from the Coen brothers up there with their best, it is one of their most funniest and surprising movies. It may seem like this is nothing than an excuse for a bunch of great actors to have fun with an intensely clever script with absolutely no serious issues at stake, but there is much more going on here. “Burn” is certainly a black screwball spy movie, with the worst spies in movie history, but it’s also a savage look at the banality of people and the destructive things they do to each other to achieve their pointless goals. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something missing that would lift this movie to the plateau of other great Coen films, I’ll be damned if I know what it is though. Maybe it’s just over before you know it, but despite what the movie accomplishes, or doesn’t accomplish, it’s still definitely a ride worth taking.