An absolute ten to the Coen brothers

Rating: 10/10 (27 October 2008)

The Coen brothers are back to their filming roots with this movie. Burn After Reading is a film with no pretensions, its only purpose is to entertain the viewer with some fantastic black humor, a characteristic in Coen's films, and very nice action and adventure. It has a very simple yet interesting story and a very well developed plot about A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to benefit from the discovery, a paranoid married man who is having an affair with the CIA agent's wife and the one gym employee becomes inadvertently involved. Each character of the movie have a conflict of their own but at the same time shares a common conflict. The movie starts with a slow rhythm but as the movie moves along it take a quick step until the end making it a very enjoyable movie. The cast is wonderful full of all star actors. John Malkovich in the role of an ex CIA agent is wonderful, Frances McDormand's performance is excellent, George Clooney is also very convincing and funny, Brad Pitt is fabulous is his role of a clumsy gym employee, he is a natural comedian, David Rasche, J K Simmons and Richard Jenkins are very good in their supporting roles, the only one I felt wasn't in the same mood as the others was Tilda Swinton, her performance was good but without the necessary energy. In conclusion, maybe the comedy of the year so far. Its intelligent, entertaining and enjoyable. Definitely a must see movie. Fully recommended.