Burn After Reading

Rating: 3/10 (9 December 2012)

Have you ever seen a film? If so, what do you stand to gain by watching it? Did you unveil some insight into the meaning of life? Or maybe you discovered some revelation on the works of a political engine or society as a whole? Burn After Reading seemed a montage of these lessons and more in a satirical, comedic way. Burn After Reading was a movie of action vs. consequence and as we all know well, there is no action without a consequence. This movie started out in rural New York City and creates a setting of betrayal, dishonesty, self-consideration, and blackmail.
At first, the movie beings with Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) getting fired from his job for "political" reasons that the employer places blame on Cox's drinking problem. Os comes home to a wife full of complaints and a house party shortly after. At the party, Cox's wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) meets Harry Pfarrer(George Clooney) and an affair with him develops shortly after. This affair initiates Katie's planning to divorce with Mr. Cox. Harry, a womanizer and a cheater, thinks he is impervious to consequence and has several affairs, even while being "happily" married. After Cox gets fired, he begins writing memoirs, which fall into the hands of a couple unlikely Hardbody Gym employees , Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzky(Frances McDormand), who think they have stumbled upon a gold mine of CIA information waiting to be held for ransom. After their failed attempts to get Cox to pay for the return of the memoirs, Chad and Linda take them to the Russian Embassy for a second attempt at easy cash.
Hilarity ensues as the duo continues their futile trek for ransom and reward along with several different scandalous acts of affair by Harry, most of his bedmates, AND his wife. When Harry discovers his wife wants to divorce him after he had plans to do so himself, he is devastated and creates pressure with the women he was seeing as well. And all of this wraps up at the potentially boring yet moot point about the daily lives of a large percentage of relationships around the world that wind up finding both parties being guilty of unfaithfulness. I mean come on, divorces happen to 2 thirds of the American populace so it's bound to happen. Just so happens this one gets two gym employee get tangled in the middle. As this is my review and narration I will be expressing my rights and say this movie was pointless and really had no plot with actual meaning.
That being said small themes can be drawn from this drab film but they are a stretch. The main one would have to be how things can come back to haunt you, summed up by "reaping what you sow". The action-consequence relationship bound to be involved in any affair relationship known to man. Several different affairs take place in the movie giving an overall feeling that a vast majority of relationships are like. Unfortunately today, yesterday, and all through the past, relationships have revolved around affairs all over the world
A secondary theme can be weaned from this film as easily as blood could be squeezed from a turnip. However I would have to say it would involve simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Chad, on a mission of espionage, takes a turn for the worse health-wise, after catching some lead between the eyes after spooking Harry in Osbourne's house while looking for more "CIA Intel". This would prove to be the only time in the movie my attention would be undivided. This can all tie back to the central theme because without breaking and entering, Chad would've never been shot. Similarly if the Wicked Witch of the East hadn't been such a witch, Dorothy's house may have never landed on her.
One scene in the movie brings Osbourne to his house, only to find all his belongings witting in the rain. With his current mood, due to the events prior, I am able to sympathize with his extreme anger and feeling the need to fling a slew of curse words towards his wife. These events mostly occurred because of his drinking problem and seemed to be a long time coming. The cinematic experience relates the weather to the anger and hopelessness felt after the consequences being received by the character. The motif central in the film is the poor decisions of people and the things that can go wrong with the wrong choices being made. One loses his wife and job and gets killed, another gets too nosy and is shot, and one more still loses every woman he worked so hard to influence his way under their sheets. This speaks volumes all by itself with relation to "reap what you sow"