"Burn After Reading" Review - Written by Anthony Thurber

Burn After Reading
Year: 2008
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Stars: John Malkovich, Francis McDormand, George Clooney
Studio: Focus Features
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 96 Mins





One of the best directing duos in cinematic history are back with their follow up to the Oscar winning Best Picture “No Country for Old Man” with a film that isn’t the type that you would expect from a winner of a Best Director Oscar. If going in with the expectations that the Coen Brothers were going to follow up their Oscar win with another serious film, then chances are that you are going to be very disappointed, as they’re gone back to the dark humor that’s made them beloved by film geeks alike.

Burn After Reading is about a CIA agent, whose life is crumbling. He’s just been ousted from the agency and his wife (Tilda Swinton) is about ready to divorce him and go off with a federal Marshall (George Clooney). Elsewhere, there’s an aerobics instructor (Francis McDormand) that wants extensive cosmetic surgery and is obsessed with finding a date on the Internet. When she and her fellow co-worker (Brad Pitt) find a disc at their workplace containing the memoirs of that agent, things begin to spiral out of control. The two then hatch a scheme to blackmail the CIA agent, so that she can get that cosmetic surgery that she’s always wanted. Soon, things don’t go according to plan and starts to horribly go wrong for everyone that’s involved. Burn After Reading also co-stars Richard Jenkins (“The Visitor”, TV’s “Six Feet Under”) and J.K. Simmonds (“Juno”, TV’s “The Closer”).

Burn After Reading is one of the funniest and surreal dark comedies I’ve seen in a while. Joel and Ethan Coen have another winner on their hands. Their direction was very good, as the dark humor and action were balanced very well. The Coen brothers had to balance this so it makes the film accessible to the average moviegoer, as it could have easily gone down the weird and very dark route that they are accustomed to doing with their dark films. Also, they did a good job with moving the action along, as it moved at a very good pace, which I’ll get to more when I talk about their screenplay. One of the things that the Coen brothers have done, in most of their films was to make sure that the acting is very good. This film was no different from films like “Fargo”, “The Hudsucker Proxy” and “ No Country for Old Men”. The acting was just incredibly good. The film has very good lead performances from John Malkovich and Francis McDormand. It was also nice to see the Coen brothers take actors like George Clooney and Brad Pitt (who should be nominated for his performance here), who are known for such serious films like “Michael Clayton” and “The Assassination of Jessie James” and have them play totally opposite characters from those movies is just brilliantly genius. They were just great, as it helped added to the film surreal story, which is a trademark of the Coen Brothers and those performances are ones that you will be taking about, after seeing this film. There also a couple of very good supporting performances from Richard Jenkins as McDormand’s boss at the gym, David Rasche as a CIA operative and J.K. Simmons, as Rasche’s boss.

The Coen brothers’ screenplay was just great. The main reason that made their screenplay good was that it focuses on many characters through out the film, as it didn’t give a sense that one character was taking up all the time. The action moves at a good pace, so that it doesn’t become dull or over the top weird. Another thing that made it very entertaining, was the fact the Coen brothers didn’t include and or wrote certain scenes like, where the agent’s wife accidentally leaving the disc at the gym there or one of the workers finding it, or film’s ending, which I won’t talk about, but was wonderfully acted by two of it’s supporting players and brilliantly placed. They also created characters that stood out for me. Each of the characters had interesting quirks and subplots that made this film, very enjoyable. The film’s dark humor was actually one of the film’s strong points, as it was funny and appropriate unlike in “In Burges” where the darkness of that film and subject matter really made the humor uncomfortable for me. There’s also those trademark twists that the Coen brothers uses effectively, in most of their film’s to shock you including one death, which I won’t give away.

The only problem with the film was too it was flat out short. Rarely do I ever complain about a running time to a very good film. But at running time of 96 minutes, it sure felt like an hour movie. Hell, I even had some soda from my large cup afterwards. But with that even said, this still one of the funniest dark comedies I’ve seen in the last couple of years.

Burn After Reading will not make you want to burn the celluloid, as the story and the performances are very entertaining and some of the best you’ll see this year.

Review Rating: Five Stars