Interesting Characters with No Story

Rating: 3/10 (14 September 2008)

Elmore Leonard once explained that in his writing he removes the parts that people skip. The Coen Brothers might do well to take this advice into consideration. I kept wanting to skip to the next scene in hopes of finding something interesting.
The Coen Brothers have a gift for creating quirky, interesting characters. But in many of their movies, including "Burn After Reading", they fail to create a similarly engaging plot. In short, the movie is all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Much of the movie seems to focus on the entangled web of infidelities between the characters. I guess I can't blame them since the spy plot line is thin and weak, which provides all of a minute's worth of action in the 90-minute movie. But the Coen's fail to make even the love triangles and quadrangles interesting. And if you can't make sex interesting, you have a serious problem.
I keep hoping that the Coen's will rise to their potential and create a movie that goes somewhere. After "Burn After Reading", I'm still waiting.