Contemplate After Watching

Rating: Null/10 (21 September 2008)

I enjoyed the Coen's Brothers Burn After Reading, but perhaps not quite as much as I'd hoped, after seeing the trailers for weeks beforehand. The trailers definitely featured all of the best bits, and, I think, rather spoiled it for me.; instead of whetting the appetite, they built up the expectation to such an extent that it would have been hard not to be slightly disappointed by the actual product. Let's be honest here, the story is pretty slim and very contrived, the characters mostly stereotypes. But, it was fun to see that many big stars on the screen in one vehicle and they all appeared to be having a good time. This is most definitely an "Oh look, there's" movie, and it's enjoyable on that level, but it doesn't pay to read too much into it. For a light comedy, the violence when it came was rather shocking, perhaps out of place in such a film. I felt that perhaps this movie couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be, a biting satire or a fall about comedy. There's a difference.
In brief, two self obsessed gym employees (I hesitate to use the word 'instructors' because all the gym instructors I know are such nice, well balanced people!) find a CD in the locker room, a CD which appears to contain some CIA files. The files belong to one Osborne Cox (a beautifully malevolent John Malkovitch), recently defrocked by the CIA for his alcohol habit and now filling his empty days at home with bad memoir writing and step aerobics. Unbeknownst to him, he is about to be divorced by his viper-tongued, doctor wife Katie (fabulous and astonishingly slim Tilda Swinton), who is having an affair with Treasury agent Harry (George Clooney), whose author wife is having an affair with some other guy.and so on. Harry is himself a compulsive seducer, who picks up women via the internet. The files on the CD are worthless, but our two heroes Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand) are certain they have something of value to 'the enemy' and try selling them to a rather bemused Russian embassy employee. The Russians? Yes, the Russians a running theme throughout the movie. And they can't even see Russia from where they live in DC.. Linda wants money for plastic surgery. Chad's motives are less specific if equally dubious  he seems to just want the adventure of being a big shot. Linda meanwhile has a date with Harry, and all the characters get interlocked.
Now much has been made of Brad Pitt's performance in this movie, and it's certainly entertaining to watch, not because you think "Wow! What a wonderful characterization of a gym bunny," but because you think "Wow! Brad Pitt is aging well," (he is) and "Hey! So a guy interested in architecture and world peace doesn't take himself so seriously that he can't have fun playing an idiot!" In fact my main criticism of this movie is that Brad didn't take his shirt off. But you're never, ever in any danger of forgetting that this is Brad Pitt. His death (at the hands of a surprised Harry, when discovered hiding in a closet) is untimely and rather cruel and unnecessarily graphic and blood spattered, I felt.
The scenes in the Russian embassy are fun; the picture of Putin looking down from the wall over the shoulder of the chain smoking, skeptical Soviet diplomat. Other small details are fun too; the tedious subject matter (the workings of Congress) of the children's books Harry's wife writes, Chad donning a geeky cycle helmet and biking to his blackmail encounter with Cox. And Frances McDormand holds the whole thing together; Linda is a heart breaking character, searching for Mr Right in a cynical world of bed hoppers, banking on surgery to improve her chances, and convinced that this CIA CD is her one big break. McDormand is great. Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins) is perhaps the one totally straightforward character in the movie, he adores Linda just the way she is, but ends up dead for his pains, hammered to death by Cox who finally cracks up. Jenkins (who delighted in The Visitor) produces possibly the best acting in this movie. His was the only character to appear where I didn't think "Oh look. There's..." There are certainly laugh aloud moments in this film. The two CIA bosses (J.K. Simmons and David Rasche) are fabulous in their surreal discussion of body disposal, yet it left me feeling it could have been better, and I'm really not quite sure what it was trying to say beyond DC is a sad and dysfunctional place.
Perhaps I'm trying to read too much into it?