Those familiar with the Coen Brothers’ brand of movies know how well they string together outlandishly funny comedies from unlikely beginnings: a couple trying to steal a baby, a husband hiring goons to kill his wife, a gang of nihilists peeing on a stoner’s rug, even portraying ‘The Odyssey’ as a farce.
‘Burn After Reading,’ their latest movie, is of this same vein.
After two gym instructors, named Chad and Linda, find a CD containing an ex-CIA analyst’s memoir, whose name is Osborne, they mistake it for ‘raw intelligence’ and try to blackmail Osborne so that Linda could afford plastic surgery. From these humble, but silly, beginnings, a group of moronic dunces weave in and out of each other to form a dense and startling story.
The writing is superb, as can be expected from any Coen Brother’s movie. Much like their previous movies, one should expect the unexpected. They masterfully drive the characters through each other to create situations where you know what’s going to happen but it still surprises you when it does.
The characters themselves don’t seem aware that they are being guided through the movie by the other characters, but all the while each attempts to manipulate the others according to their own end. With the exception of the extremely dense Chad, who seems to be the blunt end of everybody’s plan.
It’s the actors that portray the moronic dunces that really make the movie. With the Coen Brother’s, you can always expect very well developed characters, but the actors really make them their own in this film. Brad Pitt departs from the pretty-boy-that’s-also-smart persona that he developed in movies such as Fight Club, and portrays the pretty-boy-that’s-also-dumb named Chad to perfection.
He is balanced by Frances McDormand, who gives yet another brilliant performance as Linda, who wants only to better herself through plastic surgery and be accepted, yet is blissfully unaware of those around her.
George Clooney, once again showing off the comedic chops he developed with the ‘Ocean’ trilogy, plays Harry, a paranoid womanizer who gets some of the biggest laughs and shocks.
John Malkovich portrays the heated Osborne, and while he can play angry as well as anybody, his character seemed to be forgotten for the middle half of the movie despite his central relationship with the plot.
Tilda Swinton, fresh off her Oscar winning performance in
‘Michael Clayton,’ is flawless in her role of an ice queen, but she isn’t really an integral part to the story and your never quite sure why she’s in the movie.
The movie, overall, was funny. The humor is the type that if you didn’t know it was a comedy, you might take it seriously. At places the humor is so subtle I found myself to be the only one laughing. But there were also intensely serious parts.
You can’t help but feel sorry for Chad or Linda during their most pathetic moments, and Osborne can come off as just plain annoying. George Clooney, however, was with out a doubt the funniest and gave the best performance, but he was more of a side character.
In a movie which is character driven, it is unfortunate that the best character wasn’t central to the main plot.
The movie’s central theme is that everybody is stupid. The people that create intelligence reports (Osborne) are too stupid to realize how little people around them care for them, the people that find Osborne’s ‘information’ are too stupid to realize that it wasn’t actually valuable stuff, and the person who is arbitrarily connected to both is too stupid to realize he isn’t that important.
The CIA director, played by J.K. Simmons in what’s mostly just a cameo role, is a parallel to the audience in that he can’t figure out exactly why these people are doing such idiotic things.
In the end, if you want a comedy that will shock you, make you think, then wind up telling you nothing at all, you can’t do much better than the Coen Brother’s, and while ‘Burn’ isn’t their most coherent it surely is a testament to their talent. Do not expect a movie such as ‘Wedding Crashers’ or ‘Old School’, where the plot is clear-cut, the ending is nice, and you can quote it for months afterwards.
Instead, expect a surprise.
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