Movie Review: Burn After Reading

There’s a simple reason why most of us see the films that star our favorite actors or are directed by our favorite directors – there’s a comfortable familiarity in it. Chances are, if we liked their previous work, we’re going to like their current work, and sometimes it’s just nice to go into a movie theater knowing what you’re in for.

Of course the best actors, and certainly the best directors, achieve this sense of familiarity without ever serving the same dish twice. They’ve established their style, sure, but that usually doesn’t mean the audience gets the same old thing reheated.

It’s hard to think of any filmmakers who achieve this exact feat on a more regular basis than Joel and Ethan Coen.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you know what you’ve committed yourself to when settling in your seat for their latest film. Thematically, their films run the gamut (obviously No Country for Old Men is a very different film than O Brother, Where Art Thou?) but they all bear the stamp of the Coen trademark.

Burn After Reading is no different. It’s a film that’s irrepressibly Coenesque, and truthfully, it doesn’t cover a whole lot of ground that the directors haven’t previously visited. But it’s always clever, often hilarious, and features plenty of memorable performances that the Coens always seem to provoke from their actors, from the headliners to the one-scene supporters.

John Malkovich steals the show early on as Osborne Cox, a CIA official ousted from his job because apparently, he has a drinking problem. “A drinking problem?” Cox utters in disbelief repeatedly. He goes on to spend the entire film in a state of incredulity. Can the people around him really be this stupid?

Yes. Yes, they can.

Furious over his termination, Cox sets out to write a memoir detailing his experiences at the CIA, but a disc containing a portion of his notes falls into the hands of two employees at the Hardbodies Gym, Linda Litzke and Chad Feldheimer (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt) who decide the information is sensitive. They’re either going to blackmail Cox or sell the secrets to the Russians, because Linda needs money for the bevy of plastic surgery she’s convinced she needs.

Article Author: Dusty Somers

Dusty Somers hails from Seattle, and is a journalism student at the University of Oklahoma. He enjoys spending time and watching films with his wife, and looks forward to their imminent return to the great Northwest.

Visit Dusty Somers's author page — Dusty Somers's Blog