"Burn After Reading"

By: Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Joel and Ethan Coen may suffer from what could be called Cinematic Bipolar Disorder—an ability more than an ailment, really, that entails alternatively creating dark dramas and then bizarre comedies. After proving themselves masters of edge-of-your-seat thrills with Oscar-dominating film “No Country for Old Men,” the Coen brothers shifted minds and set out to make a most frustratingly absurd farce named “Burn After Reading”. Few have proven adept at drawing both the laughers and screamers, but gems like “O Brother, Where Art Though” and “The Big Lebowski” illustrate the fact that the Coen brothers possesses what few Oscar-winning directors can claim to possess: a sense of humor. Alas, although the wit and quirk coloring the latest Cohen brothers foray into comedy is bound to stick with an audience predisposed to odd humor, “Burn After Reading” is far from attaining the classic status expected from the Coens.

“Burn After Reading” is a mishmash of eccentric but real characters all hanging on for dear life as their worlds spin out of control. Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is an ex-CIA analyst looking for respect, and his feisty wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is not about to give it to him; nor to her love affair Harry Pfarrar (George Clooney), who is an affable womanizer looking for a good time and a great jogging trail. Meanwhile, gym employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) wants a slew of cosmetic surgeries to match her physique with the name of her gym (Hard Bodies). Litzke enlists the help of her ebullient co-worker Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) to help her on her way to greater sex appeal.

After seemingly picking a bunch of characters out of hat, Joel and Ethan Coen set to crafting a comedy of errors. In an attempt to make his life worthwhile, the stuck-up Osborne Cox decides to ignore his pestering wife’s criticisms and write a memoir. Little does he know that his lack of lucrative ambition has caused his wife to prepare for a divorce by laying hands on his financial information, and perhaps accidentally, his memoir. The disk containing this information is mistakenly left at Hard Bodies, and when the contents are examined by the ever-excitable Chad Feldheimer, who thinks the data is top-secret CIA information, he joins forces with Litzke to blackmail the unsuspecting Cox. Litzke wants the cash for a tummy tuck and breast implants, while the enthusiastic but dim Feldheimer simply wants to play a game of cops and robbers.

Although the data is hardly CIA classified, Cox treats his personal information as if it were for his eyes only. Litzke and Feldheimer are over their heads, which only complicates matters furthers, and the fact that divorce and bankruptcy loom on more than one character’s horizon causes patience to ebb and rash behavior to flow. Already moving steadily from order to disorder, this absurd tale becomes more outlandish by the minute. Cox wants respect and his disk, but is having an equally difficult time attaining either. Feldheimer is having a good time, but Litzke is not getting any closer to her artificially constructed goals. This movie shows that sometimes when you get all the right ingredients working in just the right proportions at just the right temperature, a perfect fiasco ensues.

“Burn After Reading” pits the wits of elite minds against the unpredictability of banal scheming. It is both painful and amusing to watch so many people make so many poor choices at the same time. In a farce, character development is sacrificed for situational development. The Coen brothers enlisted a phenomenal cast to bring life to the story, but their talents may have been better implemented in more amusing circumstances.

For all the bizarre plot turns, “Burn After Reading” is well crafted. It is well crafted, but not all that enjoyable. Most of the potentially laugh-out-loud moments in this movie elicit a chuckle, and thus the audience is bound to become restless while the perfect storm takes too long to develop. Yet although “Burn After Reading” might be a letdown for fans of the Coen brothers, it is easy to admire a sharply built and fast moving cyclone of human drama.

“Burn After Reading” is rated R for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence.