Burn After Reading: Joel and Ethan Doing What They're Best At

The Coen Brothers have given us a new “spy” comedy which only deals with spying in the most superficial and inept levels imaginable. It’s actually probably doing the film a disservice to advertise it that way. However, it does give us the successful formula we’re used to seeing from the Coens.

One thing that Joel and Ethan Cohen do really well in their films is to breed absurdity out of the every day human condition. Burn After Reading is no exception, if I had to compare it to any of their previous works, this one really smells a lot like Fargo, which is one of my favorite films, though the characters don’t seem as true or relatable as they do in that film.

Like Fargo, we have a troupe of characters that are mostly reprehensible, or at the very least not very likeable, and they mange to make a series of decisions that in and of themselves don’t seem outrageous, but snowball into an absurd series of events that just get uglier and uglier.

The driving force behind the story is Linda Litzke, played by Frances McDormand, an employee at a local “chain” style gym. Litzke is an aging single woman that is trying to come up with a way to finance some cosmetic surgery.

Completely unconnected, we also have CIA analyst Osborne Cox played by John Malkovich who decides to resign his position rather than take a demotion, a decision that throws his already shaky marriage into jeopardy.

When Litzke’s dim-witted co-worker at the gym finds a disk in a locker room containing some files from Cox’s computer she sees this as a way to finance her surgeries. The dim-witted co-worker is played quite brilliantly by Brad Pitt. It’s a small but great supporting role for Pitt, breaking the mold a little bit for what we’re used to seeing him play.

Amazingly enough, with all the star power in this movie, including George Clooney as a carousing government employee, character actors David Rasche and J.K. Simmons pretty much steal the second half of this film with a couple of scenes. Simmons and Rasche play CIA workers who are passively observing the events that are unfolding amongst the main characters and trying to determine the relevance and threat level of what’s going on, if they can figure out what’s going on.

The big problem with Burn After Reading is that takes way too long to find any traction and tends to meander around these characters without any focus before things start moving. The film tediously belabors the exposition to the point that you almost lose interest. If it wasn’t for a strong finish, it could have been a little bit of a downer. With that in mind, while funny and intelligent, Burn After Reading is no Fargo. While Fargo was tight, brilliantly structured and paced, Burn suffers from a sloppy, unfocused first act.

The end result, though, is still another hit for the Coens finding humor in ridiculous tragedy and it’s hard not to walk out of the theater without a big guilty grin on your face.

Tags: Reviews