Perhaps the Worst Film the Coen Brothers Have Ever Made

Rating: 1/10 (29 December 2008)

That noxious odor in the air is the Coen brothers going down in flames after hitting one out of the park last year with "No Country for Old Men."
"Burn After Reading" is a hateful film that I pretty much loathed every second of. A bunch of good actors give terrible performances in this story about two morons who get in over their heads when they try to hold some leaked CIA information for ransom. Every actor in this ratchets his/her performance to the level of the grotesque, and they're all about equally unwatchable. John Malkovich is one note, while George Clooney and Frances McDormand mug and grimace their way embarrassingly through the plot. Brad Pitt, who I guess is supposed to be our comic relief, is painfully unfunny, as is the Coens' attempts at humor. The story itself isn't bad, but instead of the clever dialogue you can usually rely on the Coens to deliver, the brothers fall back instead on repeated uses of the f-word and some dildo humor.
The Coen brothers have always been hit-or-miss with me, and "Burn After Reading" represents them at their juvenile worst.
Grade: F