A very dark comedy of errors, accidental intrigue and misplaced paranoia, the new Coen brothers film offers cerebral, slightly disturbing entertainment that moves along at rapid-fire pace. The amazing, distinguished ensemble cast adds nuance to an already clever and biting script. John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, George Clooney and Brad Pitt play characters ranging from prickly to neurotic to completely insane, in a grand send-up of modern American delusion and mistrust set in the age of warrant-less wiretapping.
McDormand and Pitt are two lowly health club employees who stumble onto what they think is some extremely sensitive and valuable top-secret information concerning John Malkovich’s character, Oswald Cox, who is a former CIA agent, recently dispatched due to a debatable problem with alcoholism. McDormand’s character, the manically chipper Linda Litzke, is hell-bent on getting plastic surgery, and will go to extremes to profit from this information so as to fund certain procedures not covered by her HMO. Things get messy when George Clooney’s self-absorbed, philandering character starts out trying to juggle too many ladies and ends up getting himself in way over his head. The plot is complicated, but expert storytelling, concise cinematography and intrinsically expressive performances make it easy to stay absorbed, with as many laugh-out-loud moments as deadly serious ones.
Disclaimer: watching Burn After Reading may exacerbate any latent paranoiac tendencies!
Comedy/Crime
Rated R
DVD Release Date: 12/21/08