It's a hilarious movie about stupid people, and we'll leave it at that

Rating: 7/10 (20 September 2008)

The Coen Brothers are at it again! After taking home the Best Picture award at the Oscars for last year's No Country For Old Men, everybody was holding their breath to see what the Coens would do next. Well it's here, it's got an ensemble A-list cast, a loopy plot full of blackmail and espionage, and an offbeat brand of humor. Sounds like the Coens to me.
Burn after Reading is about an ex-CIA agent named Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), who after quitting his job decides to write a revealing memoir about his past in the CIA. However his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), who is cheating on him with the paranoid Federal Marshal Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), finds his memoir, burns it onto a CD, and ends up losing it by leaving it at a public gym. It is here where two quirky gym employees, Linda Litzke (Frances Mcdormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), find the CD, and also Osborne's phone number and address. The pair decide to blackmail Osborne into giving them 50,000 dollars if he ever wants the CD back, otherwise they threaten to give it to the Russian Embassy. As all 5 of these morons get further and further into their little web of blackmail, greed, and deceit. Nobody seems to notice the severe consequences waiting for them just around the corner.
Burn after Reading is really not a film that relies too heavily on its plot, since it just gets more and more idiotic as it goes along. This film relies more on its stupid characters and all the immoral, self centered hi-jinks they get into. Which they could have avoided had they just acted a little smarter. I am not saying Burn after Reading was a stupid film, I'm saying it was a very good movie about stupid people, stupid morals, stupid decisions, and frankly just downright stupidity. These characters are all perfectly cast and every single character has their moment (or moments). John Malkovich is excellent as a very angry guy, who begins to just hate everybody and everything. George Clooney is funny as a paranoid, sex addicted weirdo who cheats on his wife every chance he gets. Frances Mcdormand also gives a standout performance as a woman who needs lots of money, because she feels she needs plastic surgery and rhinoplasty to make herself look beautiful. However the real scene-stealer here is Brad Pitt as a flamboyant gym trainer who is obsessed with his ego. In one scene his character tries to smart talk Osborne over the phone by pretending to sound like a secret agent, but really just ends up repeating Osborne's name over and over again. It's scenes like this that really give this movie its comedic flavor.
I have never seen a movie that goes this far with such idiot characters. However that is really what makes Burn after Reading a memorable film. Nobody acts with intelligence, everybody is self centered, absolutely nothing is at stake, and almost everybody gets hurt in some way by the end over nothing. There are a few scenes involving two CIA agents trying to figure out what exactly these people were actually trying to do, and they simply just have no idea, and neither do we. I can barely explain anything about this movie without using the word stupid in every sentence, which I'm sure you've noticed. So we'll just leave it at this: It's a hilarious movie about stupid people, and that's just about it. I give it a 3.5 out of 5.