Burn Before Watching

Rating: 4/10 (31 October 2008)

After No Country for Old Men the Coens brothers no doubt had free rein (and a blank cheque) for their next project. That they chose to waste that potential on something as flaccid and underwhelming as Burn After Reading is bitterly disappointing and proves once and for all that the brothers are not as talented as we would like to believe.
Burn After Reading is about morons and, not incidentally, that also seems to be its target audience. It is a clichéd ensemble piece - a panoply of characters are introduced which appear to have no real connection between them and slowly the links are revealed. This simplicity would be forgivable if there were a single charming or clever element in the piece but sadly it all seems like a bad joke. The characters are composed of nothing but ticks and grimaces; McDormand looks like she is in a no man's land between 2 minor strokes (and is eerily reminiscent of Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka) while Clooney confirms that the sum of his comedic acting ability is his willingness to contort his face. Pitt is the only major player who comes off more or less unscathed (he seems to embrace the absurdity, rather than trying to act through it) but his role is too minimal to save the film. The script is unwieldy, veering from confusing to overly simplistic and has a somewhat puerile sexual focus.
Good points are few are far between. The supporting players are generally good - with J.K. Simmons and Richard Jenkins especially memorable. Indeed the formers interactions with his intelligence community subordinate, as they try to figure out what the hell the main characters are up to, provide the films only consistent humour.
Burn After Reading is a black comedy with too much milk and sugar - the result is anemic and lacking the grown up sensibilities of the brothers' better films. Fargo, for example, is extremely funny at times but laces that humour with a real sense of human desperation and a respect for the audiences intelligence.
It seems pretty obvious to me that this film would not exist without the success of No Country for Old Men, a film which I thought was effective but rather overrated. Perhaps if more people had felt like I did we wouldn't have had to suffer through this flat, laugh free 'comedy'.
Burn After Reading is about morons, for morons and (quite possibly) made by morons. Avoid.