Burn After Reading (Blu-ray)

Star Review

Burn After Reading is a spy caper of sorts. It opens with a satellite zooming in on the Earth. This isn’t Earth though – not even movie-Earth – the Coens are focussing their attention on a new world of idiots they’ve created for their own malign entertainment. Behind the scenes they’ve prepped an unlikely scenario, designed a selection of flawed characters, wound up their motivation-motors and hit the ‘Go’ button.

The screwball premise finds two workers at Hardbodies Gym (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) attempting to blackmail a cuckolded CIA administrator (John Malkovich). McDormand’s motivation is a slew of plastic surgery she can’t afford and doesn’t need, while Pitt’s character is simply rather dim. As they entertainingly bungle along, supporting characters get dragged into the maelstrom and thrown out again, most often deceased. In the final stretch the film careers in a most entertaining fashion towards its hilariously bleak culmination. The Coens are cruel masters, but they’re fun to hang out with.

Dan Hunter on 20th December 2008

View all 35 of Dan Hunter’s reviews

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Film Description

John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, George Clooney and Brad Pitt star in this Coen brothers crime comedy concerning the whereabouts of a sensitive disc containing the incriminating memoirs of alcoholic CIA agent Osbourne Cox (Malkovich). Cox's wife, Katie (Swinton), who is having an affair with married federal marshall, Harry Pfarrer (Clooney), is making plans to leave her husband, and is advised by her divorce lawyer to copy his personal files onto a disc. The disc finds its way via a circuitous route to the Hardbodies fitness gym, where two unscrupulous employees, Linda (McDormand) and Chad (Pitt) decide to exploit their find for all they can get. Events soon spiral out of everyone's control in a cascading series of surreal and darkly comic encounters and misunderstandings.

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Film Details

Cast

Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, George Clooney

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