"You are part of a league of morons."

Rating: 7/10 (31 May 2019)

The Coen brothers Joel and Ethan put their distinctive comic spin on the spy genre with "Burn After Reading". Although it's not quite as good as "Fargo" or "Raising Arizona" in this viewers' humble opinion, it's still funny enough and smart enough to qualify as a good time. It works because its characters are clueless and naive and totally out of their depth, and it's fun watching a bunch of talented stars play these grasping bozos.
Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt play Linda and Chad, two schmucks who work at a gym called Hardbodies. One day, the janitor finds a disc in a locker room that turns out to have VERY mildly interesting stuff on it. As it turns out, this disc contains the memoirs of a disgruntled CIA agent named Osborne Cox (John Malkovich). Linda and Chad figure to capitalize on this find somehow, but their plans go awry. Meanwhile, womanizing Treasury agent Harry (George Clooney) manages to fool around with both Linda and Osbornes' fed-up wife Katie (Tilda Swinton).
It's a testament to the abilities of this cast that "Burn After Reading" is as entertaining as it is, but the script by the Coens was already pretty amusing. One has to wonder how fools like Linda (who's desperate to "improve" her appearance with a series of plastic surgeries) and Chad can possibly extricate themselves from this mess into which they've placed themselves. And Harry has his own problems. Not only has he obsessed over creating his own hilarious gadget, but he ends up faced with a problem that completely unnerves him since he presumably had quite the "safe" career. (He claims he's never had cause to draw his weapon.)
Clooney and especially Pitt are hilarious. Malkovich does a lot of yelling in an amusingly unsympathetic role. McDormand is a delight. And Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Marvel (as Harry's wife, a successful author), David Rasche, J.K. Simmons, Olek Krupa, J.R. Horne, and Jeffrey DeMunn add to the hilarity with their expert performances.
Everything leads to a priceless series of revelations / resolutions dictated to us by Rasche, and Simmons' reactions in this finale are simply great.
Overall, this is a good comedy that is well worth a look.
Seven out of 10.