moviereview - Burn After Reading

BURN AFTER READING

	Gym workers discover a CD full of data and trace it to the CIA. Blackmail seems a profitable option but fate stands in their way.	score 4	moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
			FIND A MOVIEREVIEW

Cast
Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand

Director
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Screenwriter
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Country
USA

Rating / Running Time
MA / 96 minutes

Australian Release
October 2008

Official Site

Burn After Reading is a minor knockabout tossed out by brothers who show more courage and spirit in their lightest moments than most directors ever get a chance to do. Although it doesn’t withstand rigorous comparison to Fargo, Barton Fink or the sublime No Country For Old Men, it was never meant to. Think of it as a bunch of guys – albeit A-Listers – letting off steam and taking us along for the ride.

Foremost is Brad Pitt’s hair-brained, gum-chewing gym-instructor around whom the story turns. Always an engaging actor, he reveals yet another side that’s part college boy, part Jerry Lewis in its goofy, magnetic innocence. He, Chad, finds a data-filled disc about bilious CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) and coerced by cash-strapped co-worker Linda (Frances McDormand) turns to blackmail. Meanwhile Linda is dating three-timing married Harry (George Clooney) who’s having an affair with Osbourne’s ice-wife Katie who, for her turn, is plotting to divorce her husband. Once Linda and Chad approach the Russian embassy, well, let’s just say all bets are off.

This tangle of pure screwball deceit arrives with pitch-perfect timing from all concerned. A prickly script serves up crisp, savage dialogue; the cast are on fire; direction is confident and assured. Although we’re urged to laugh at, not with, the Coen’s cast of fools, sex, lies and compact discs have never been so painfully funny. If there are any residual concerns about the picture’s net worth, which is to say that Burn After Reading doesn’t really add up to all that much, it should be put in context of raspberry soufflé. It may be light, but that doesn’t make it any less delicious.

// COLIN FRASER