"Burn After Reading"
Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovitch, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt, J.K Simmons
***.5/****
Hot off of the Oscar success of No Country for Old Men, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have directed their latest dark comedy. Burn After Reading is a spy based comedy that mocks the follies of National Security with amazingly stupid characters played by amazingly good actors.
George Clooney who has starred in other Coen films, plays Harry Pfarrer, a smooth talking womanizer who is having an affair with the wife of a recently terminated CIA member. The analyst is Osbourne Cox played by the underrated John Malkovich. Cox has been with the CIA for decades and is blindsided at his forced resignation. His wife played by recent Oscar winner Tilda Swinton wants to know what he will do for money. Cox dreams of writing a memoir, hoping to sell it for big bucks.
Thrown in two dim-witted gym employees played by Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand and soon everyone is intertwined. Pitt played Chad Feldheimier, a gum chewing, water guzzling fitness freak that only Pitt has the unseen humor to play. McDormand, a Coens regular, plays Linda Litzke, an aging woman looking to get plastic surgery in all the right places.
The narrative and tone has the feel of a thriller, but its truly a black comedy for those unsure of it. Only the Coens can create such characters and worlds where there are truly no rules. If you're a fan of films like The Big Lewbowski and other Coen farces, Burn After Reading will please you. If you go in expecting No Country for Old Men or an award caliber film, you will leave dissapointed.
The film is fun, and breezy at about 95 minutes. J.K Simmons who plays the father in Juno, has a excruciatingly funny role as the head of CIA branch trying to make sense of all of the characters actions. He sums up the entire movie in two scenes. Only the Coens can create a character that has 2 minutes of screen time, and make him memorable.
