Joel and Ethan Coen are riding high these days. They took home the Oscar for last year's No Country for Old Men and pretty much every actor in Hollywood is dying to work with them. Consequently, the Coens have their proverbial pick of the Hollywood A-list litter, and can generally get them well below the going rate.
Their latest features Coens' regulars George Clooney and Frances McDormand (who is married to Joel) alongside Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, and J.K. Simmons.
The ridiculous plot centers around CIA analyst Osborne Cox (Malkovich), who leaves the agency after a demotion. He decides to write his memoirs and, through circumstances too convoluted to discuss here, the files wind up on a CD left in the ladies locker room at Hard Bodies Gymnasium. The janitor hands them off to Chad Felmheimer (Pitt), who suspects the files house important CIA secrets and decides to blackmail Cox. He pulls fellow Hard Bodies employee Linda Litzke (McDormand) in on the scheme, which she believes will help raise the money for a series of elective surgeries. The scheme sets off a chain reaction of events that grow increasingly preposterous and, yet, utterly believable considering the combined I.Q. of the characters. Clooney is a married federal marshall who's seeing Cox's wife Katie (Swinton) on the side, and Jenkins is the lovesick Hard Bodies boss, whose attempts to impress his oblivious crush, Linda, get him tangled up in the situation.
Discussing the plot any further would only result in giving away some of the movie's terrifically entertaining
surprises. If you're into the Coens' brand of sardonic humor showcased in Fargo, O Brother, Where Art
Thou?, and The Hudsucker Proxy, then this should be right up you're alley.
What's so fascinating about the Coens is how effortlessly they shift genres without missing a beat. After the slapstick-esque Intolerable Cruelty and Ladykillers, the Coens directed their darkest work since
Miller's Crossing, the very faithful translation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Now they're back with a dark comedy reminescent of Fargo and it's absolutely great. The story starts off a little slow but once it gets going, watch out. The last twenty minutes are unforgettable and brilliant.
The Coens typically get great performances from their cast -- and that's true here. But the most unlikely, and consequently hysterical, performance is Pitt's Chad Felmheimer. Chad's the kind of dimwitted fitness fanatic everyone's met, and maybe even had a personal training lesson from at the gym. Even as events spiral out of control around poor Chad, he's blissfully unaware, content to bop around to his iPod and ride his trusty bike (which is not a Schwinn) around town. Pitt looks to have had a blast with the part -- Chad is so much fun to watch, even as you just want to slap some sense into him.
Clooney's role is similar to those in O Brother and Intolerable Cruelty, but that doesn't make this egotistic, dimwitted character any less entertaining. Likewise, Frances McDormand tees off on the role of Linda Litzke, who may well be the distant, less-intelligent cousin of Fargo's Marge Gunderson. Finally, as often happens in the Coens' movies, a minor role provides the other standout performance. J.K. Simmons is an unnamed CIA superior officer, made aware of the situation as events start to escalate. While Simmons has just a few scenes, sitting behind a desk, his comic timing and effortless delivery provide the ending's perfect wrap up.
Burn After Reading finds the Coens in top form, providing laughs aplenty. And, as silly as it all seems, this one will have you thinking for days after. I suspect this movie, like many of the brothers' others, will only improve with age, revealing subtle nuances missed on the first viewing. As the summer season dries to a prune and choices dwindle, Burn After Reading is an easy recommendation for a good time at the cinema.
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