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Burn After Reading boasts a highly talented and respected cast. George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins are Coen brother regulars while Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and J K Simmons are welcome newcomers. Despite this potential, the actors are merely there to look the fool and the film itself seems rushed, contrived and to Coen-loyalists, a betrayal.
The Coen brothers never really dealt with mainstream success well. They also seem to get nervous and follow a huge success with a screwball farce (Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, and The Big Lebowski). This time, however, No Country for Old Men is arguably their most acclaimed film yet so their nervousness must have been higher. It shows. The very first shot is a satellite picture of the USA which shamelessly looks like something seen in one of the Bourne films, not a spoof.
When everyone involved in this film read the script, they should have paid more attention to the title.
The plot has no cohesion or fluidity, the film is rather a selection of comical moments. Osboune Cox (Malkovich) is a recently dismissed CIA operative who loses a disc containing his memoirs in a gym. This disc finds its ways to Linda and Chad (McDormand and Pitt), two gym employees who mistake it for “top secret sensitive shit”.
They plan to give it back to Cox in return for a reward but when their bribery attempt proves calamitous; they turn to the Russian Embassy. Linda needs money urgently for her extensive plastic surgery by the way. She is also trying to find a man: she meets Harry (Clooney) who is also married and dating Cox’s wife, Katie (Swinton). Confused? Everyone is bad, they do bad things and eventually bad stuff happens to them.
Simply, this film lacks definition. There are funny excerpts, mostly involving Pitt who proves his quality as the likeable airhead living life with the maxim: “Ignorance is bliss”. Everyone else however is selfish, and stereotypically unpleasant. Everyone is involved in what can best be described as a “sex farce” but when they all get their comeuppance at the end, the audience are left empty and mystified and that is because we do not care about these characters.
It is a short film at 96 minutes but that does not mean it is concise or sharp. J K Simmons plays the head of the CIA who is completely bewildered by these weird events. There is no resolution at the end and we are spoon-fed the idea that people can be moronic and despicable so much that for the first time, the Coens seem patronising.
When everyone involved in this film read the script, they should have paid more attention to the title.
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