‘Burn After Reading’ | 2 ½ stars
By ROBERT W. BUTLER
The Kansas City Star
After the strain of making an Oscar-winning movie about murder, greed and man’s fate in a Godless universe, what does a filmmaker do to lighten up a bit?
Ethan and Joel Coen chose to bounce back from “No Country for Old Men” by tossing off a little black comedy about murder, greed and human stupidity.
“Burn After Reading” is a rather pointless affair (its pointlessness is exactly its point). It’s more interesting for what happens around its edges than for the event itself. It’s sort of like a meal in which the entrée is mediocre but the side dishes are to die for.
When CIA analyst Ozzie Cox (John Malkovich) quits the agency after being demoted, he begins writing a memoir. Meanwhile, his wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), resents having him around the house since it complicates her affair with a self-absorbed federal marshal named Harry (George Clooney).
Katie plans to divorce Ozzie and downloads all their financial records onto a computer disk. Along with the bank accounts she copies Ozzie’s memoir of life with the CIA.
When the disk falls into the hands of a couple of gym employees — Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt) — these two mental midgets think they’ve hit the espionage jackpot.
Linda desperately needs cash for the extensive cosmetic surgery she is sure will turn her life around. The clueless Chad thinks it’ll be fun to play spy.
First they try to blackmail Ozzie. When that fails they attempt to sell the disk to the Russians, who quickly conclude that it’s of no value.
Meanwhile Linda meets Harry through a computer dating service. Harry, you see, is cheating on both his mistress, Katie, and his wife, a writer of children’s books.
Bobbing around the edges of this convoluted web of intersecting plot threads is Linda’s boss at the gym (Richard Jenkins), a poor loser who adores her just the way she is, and a couple of CIA bigwigs (David Rasche, J.K. Simmons) who try to figure out what’s going on and finally conclude that it’s all pointless.
In true Coen brothers style, there’s nary a virtuous person in sight. Nor does their screenplay offer much in the way of depth, subtext or philosophical underpinnings.
What “Burn” does deliver is a handful of superbly dry comic scenes, some memorable depictions of human perfidy and idiocy and a couple of shockingly violent plot twists that’ll have you wondering if you really saw what you think you saw.
Rarely has the human race been depicted as so innately stupid. Clooney’s marshal is a superficial charmer who can’t see past his own … er, manhood. Swinton’s wife is an icy shrew who makes her character in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” seem warm and cuddly.
Pitt is hysterical as a bouncy boy toy. McDormand is amusing, sad and finally exasperating as a woman whose obsession with physical perfection has entered a pathological stage.
And Malkovich is perfect as a supercilious snob whose use of a certain Anglo Saxon profanity may set some sort of record for creativity.
Funniest of all are Rasche and Simmons as the CIA guys, whose cheerful ineptness does not speak well for our nation’s security.
“Burn After Reading” has some long flat patches and tries a bit too hard to parody spy movie clichés (thundering timpani, long sliding shots through bland government corridors). It only turns up the comic juice fairly late in the proceedings. But when it does, it makes you remember why you like the Coen brothers’ movies.
‘BURN AFTER READING’ ★★ 1/2
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Cast: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich
Rated: R for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence
Running time: 1:36
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