Review: Burn After Reading (2008) · 8:43pm Jan 18th, 2016
Burn After Reading is the Coen Brothers sarcastic and intentionally screwball riff on the notoriously straight laced genre of spy thriller. Intentionally taking the multitudes of tropes and plot points that fill the genre and playing them for pure absurdity, the film revels in it's madness and lack of logic, in a way that really, only a Coen Brothers film can.
The Coen's direction is intentionally tongue in cheek, from the over the top zoom in on earth at the beginning, to the dutch angels that sneak in here and there, the duo frames the film in a way that is simultaneously kitschy and precise. By contrasting the absurdity of the narrative and dialogue with direction that is prim and proper, they highlight the sheer absurdity of it all, and in doing so, let the comedy speak for itself.
Their screenplay is, as always, filled with a bitingly dry and cynical edge, contrasting Francis McDormand's pathetically selfish need for plastic surgery with Brad Pitt's hilariously dumb amiability, Clooney's pathetic womanizing, Malkovich's constant self-important anger, and Tilda Swinton's chilly dismissal of everyone in her life. The screenplay takes situations that seem serious on the service (secret documents on a disc being found by totally normal people), and then subverts and spins it off into pure absurdism were the people who find the disc are total morons, and the disc itself is a horrifically written memoir.
The acting is intentionally broad, yet at the same time subtle. Francis McDormand is a hilariously selfish woman with absolutely no self confidence, who desperately craves unnecessary plastic surgery to boost her pathetically small ego. In what almost feels like a tongue in cheek, self aware deconstruction of her supremely self confident and selfless character in Fargo, here, McDormand is far from competent or selfless, and is instead a selfish employee of a gym.
Brad Pitt is a total show stealer as the hilariously stupid, yet incredibly good natured gym trainer/would-be-blackmailer, and from his insipid haircut to his too-tight gym clothes, to his seemingly complete lack of practical intelligence, Pitt is a comedic master here, and makes his (relatively) brief screentime really memorable.
George Clooney once more helps himself to another glourious serving of Ham and Cheese as a ex-bodyguard/Treasury Department Employee/would-be ladiesman. In another of his wonderful deconstructions of his smooth public image, here, Clooney has a grungy beard and is a pathetic looser, and it's obvious that Clooney is having the time of his life.
Tilda Swinton is possibly the most "normal" character here, and even then, she's a pediatrician who seems to hate working with children, and acts in an aloof, comically cold manner with everyone in her life, completely alienating them, while being baffled at their response to her.
John Malkovich is as beautifully off kilter as always, viciously chewing the scenery as only Malkovich can in every scene. As a disgruntled CIA analyst who is fired from his job for his drinking problem, he then tries to write his memoirs, only for them to be stolen by his wife in her single-minded desire to divorce him. Said disc of finical and book info ends up in the hands of Pitt and McDormand, setting off the shenanigans. Malkovich plays his character with no subtly, and just flies off the hinge at every little (and not so little) obstruction in his way.
Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography is understated, favoring a softer color pallet then normal Coen's cinematographer Roger Deakins' rich colors. But it still works, and fits the film. Carter Burwell's over dramatic score is the perfect contrast for the absurdity, and Richard Jenkins and J.K. Simmons' bit parts are both pitch-perfect.
So all in all, Burn After Reading is a zany, irreverent, and intentionally absurd practice in insanity, very much in the vein of The Big Lebowski, except with spy thrillers instead of noir fiction. I, for one, got a kick out of it.
5 out of 5 stars.
I've been meaning to see that for some time now...
~Skeeter The Lurker
"It was just on the floor, laying there."
3696045 "It's like these dates, and numbers, and dates, and numbers, and... numbers, and... I think that's the shit, man."
3696054 "I found it, it was just laying on the floor there."