Movie Review: Burn After Reading

Alternate Title: League of Morons

Story: Let it be said here and now – I am a BIG Coen Brothers fan. They have a unique vision of the human condition that no other filmmaker comes close to portraying on the big screen.

This DC based spy farce has the perfect blend of idiots, self-obsessed characters and sudden violence that Coen fans adore. We find CIA operative, Osbourne Cox, quitting his job when he learns he is to be demoted. The CD that contains his tell all memoir finds its way into the hands of two gym employees who decide to blackmail Cox. Everyone is sleeping with everyone else and for awhile it is just enormous fun to watch the lunacy unfold without following the plot in its entirety. I cannot reveal much more or else you would not have as much fun as I did.

The film revolves around infidelity, betrayal, mid-life crisis’, spies, former spies, sex addiction and lipo-suction. Now doesn’t that spark your interest? If you like your films a bit quirky, somewhat dark, always challenging, entertaining, with terrific writing and outstanding direction then you should get to the theater lickety split to see this new Joel and Ethan Coen gem.

Acting: George Clooney as a sex addicted former Treasury agent is a hoot. He does smarmy really well. Frances McDormand has not been this good since the Oscar wining Marge, in Fargo. John Malkovich as Cox is crazy as a loon. Brad Pitt as the self-absorbed gym employee, Chet, is terrific. Tilda Swinton does the ice Queen role to perfection. Richard Jenkins is sterling as the most normal character on the screen. JK Simmons and David Rasche pull in many of the laughs at Langley.

Trivia: Ethan Coen worked as a statistical clerk at Macy’s before setting off to make Blood Simple in1984. Joel Coen Adopted a baby named Pedro with wife, Frances McDormand. As a child, he saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Super-8 camera. As of 2007, Joel Coen is the only person to have ever directed his wife to a Best Actress Oscar (Frances McDormand in Fargo in 1996). George Clooney tried out for a position on the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. Tilda Swinton comes from one of the oldest families in Scotland and since 2004, she has been in a relationship with Sandro Kopp, a painter from New Zealand. She continues to live, platonically, with artist and writer, John Byrne, with whom she brings up their two children. Brad Pitt is banned from entering China because of his role in Seven Years in Tibet (1997).

Predilection: I adore the Coen Brothers

Critters: None

Food: Hors dourves and Chinese food

Sex Spectrum: Lots of bed hopping.

Blatant Product Placement: Jamba Juice

Soundtrack: A quirky fun track.

Opening Titles: A Google Earth space image that focus’ eventually on CIA headquarters at Langley.

Visual Art: Wonderful details abound.

Theater Audience: A handful of Coen Brothers admirers.

Weather: Lovely

Sappy Factor: 0

Quirky Meter: 2

Squirm Scale: 0

Drift Factor: 0

Predictability Level: You never know what is going to happen in a Coen Brothers film.

Tissue Usage: 0

Oscar Worthy: Who knows? But I doubt it since they walked away with the Best Picture last year for ‘No Country for Old Men’.

Big Screen or Rental: Big screen for sure. Have yourself a rental good time with these other Coen Brothers films: No Country for Old Men, The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty, The Man Who Wasn’t There, O Brother, Where Art Thou,? The Big Lebowski ,Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing, Raising Arizona nd Blood Simple.

Length: Under two hours

LOBO HOWLS: 8