The Coen's Bastard Film

Rating: 1/10 (8 January 2010)

Inevitably an excellent filmmaker or in Joel and Ethan's case, filmmakers will make a bad film. Joel and Ethan have enjoyed so much success and have made so many great films that they would be allowed a poor film. 'Burn After Reading' shook my faith in the Coen Brothers whom I greatly admire. It isn't just bad it's jaw droopingly awful. It's 'I want my rental fee back' bad. It's maybe I forget 'Big Lebowski' or 'O, Brother Where Art Thou?' and skip your next comedy bad. Skip this film at all costs. Forget the name Coen is on the box, because the Joel and Ethan Coen I've seen must have shut themselves off when they made this piece of work.
What could be unfunny? Everything. I laughed maybe once in the film and it was more of a "Really?" laugh (I think you'll infer that the scene was where George Clooney's Harry showcases his "chair") I didn't necessarily find it all that funny but it was a curve ball laugh. The Coen Brothers have always had droll humor. I've greatly enjoyed their earlier comedic efforts. Here it is just sad to watch. It gets to a point where the film seems downright pretentious. That's a low that the Coens never reached before. Their films have always been very smart but they included the audience in it. I just couldn't go with them with 'Burn After Reading'. I knew all the punchlines the Coens were setting up and where the laugh track might sound but none of these scenes were very funny. Joel and Ethan are brave enough to set up a scene where the 'punchline' is Brad Pitt getting shot in the head. It isn't funny. There are two instances of quirky humor being supplied with violence. I laughed at this in their 'Ladykillers' (which many did not like but I really enjoyed), but here it just seems grim and depressing. Everything in the film is far too tongue in cheek but when you have people getting killed and a serious tone it doesn't work.
The biggest problem with the film is it's characters. I don't think the Coens have been given a better cast to work with in terms of talent. None of the characters are allowed to be given life because there is no detail to them. We get very broad ideas about them but nothing to engage us. The character who suffers the most from this is George Clooney's Harry. I think he had the most potential but he is really given an inadequate amount of screen time. He is obviously a sex addict but we don't know why or how he got these insecurities about having relationships. Clooney is eccentric sure but it would have gotten more response from the audience if we knew why. Frances McDormand's performance is the best in the film and it is so despite the script. She is obviously aging and insecure but the Coen Brothers don't really tell you this in their script. McDormand has to bring it out in the subtle of her performance. All the Coens give us is that she is single and concerned about her looks. What McDormand does is carry this character on her own in a decent performance.
Much is made about everyone being unlikeable in the film. The fact is I couldn't care one way or the other if the characters are unlikeable, in fact I'd prefer that they weren't. The problem is these characters have no real personality. These very talented actors are playing for emotion and mood. I can't describe the performances. They are over the top in a surprisingly restrained way. I can very easily imagine the Coen's telling George Clooney and crew to "quirk it up". It seems like that. If the Coens had written better characters I have no doubt that this excellent cast would have organically gone and created the kind of characters the Coen's love. Joel and Ethan take a gamble and expect their great cast to save a garbage script, they don't collect.
I don't hate the Coen Brothers, on the contrary it is because of my great respect for them that I am so hard on this film. The last thing any filmmaker needs is blind praise. It seems like 'Burn After Reading' received a great deal of blind praise.