Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading
Directed: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Starring: George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, Tilda Winton

Synopsis: Dumb gym employees find an ex-CIA’s memoirs and try to blackmail him.

I would have not known this was a Coen brother movie, if I didn’t know it going in. They usually have a way with words and weird phrases that I love. They even had weird phrases in No Country For Old Men, but I didn’t find any of it in this movie. It mostly had the same actors from other Coen brother movies and it was on the odd side, but it wasn’t one of their better movies.

I don’t love all their movies, but the ones I like, I do fancy quite a bit! I found this one lacking. The set up in the beginning was so drawn out and boring. It was also unnecessary since it wasn’t to make any of it clearer. It still had so much going on when it did finally pick up that the set up in the beginning didn’t help explain everything. It was mostly mistaken identity and misunderstandings about misinformation. Most of it perpetrated by stupid people, which were the funny parts.

My favorite parts of the movie involved Brad Pitt. He was awesome at being an idiot. He worked out stupidly and danced stupidly and spoke stupidly. It was a bunch of stupid awesomeness. When he wasn’t on the screen, I felt the movie dragged. Actually, I thought John Malkovich was pretty entertaining at being so very angry most of the movie, but really, I was waiting for Brad Pitt to show up again. I shouldn’t forget that George Clooney had some funny moments and some of his lines made me laugh while also saying, “WTF?” Also, the surprise present he was making for his wife was truly messed up.

There were some completely unexpected things that happened between George Clooney and Brad Pitt’s character that I don’t want to reveal, but it did fit the weirdness of the movie. Finally, the CIA director guys were hilarious in trying to figure out what was going on and how to cover it up.

Rating: C+

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