Burn After Reading
June 10th 2009 03:47
If you have any insight into the movie-making process, you’ll no doubt know that a director’s job is to bring the best performance they can out of an actor and balance that carefully with those of the other cast members. In movies such as Burn After Reading, it is painfully clear that the Coen Brothers envisioned a comedy, but produced a foul-mouthed, incoherent, unfeeling soup.
The plot (hah!) revolves around Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), a lowly CIA analyst who loses his memoirs in a gym. This in turn causes him to spew expletives for the rest of the film as if he was going for the world record. Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand) happen to work at the gym, find his memoirs and, thinking they’re more valuable than gold, try to blackmail Cox. Their blackmail attempt falls through, Chad gets his brains blown out by thoughtless bodyguard Harry (George Clooney) and the CIA cover it all up only to find that Cox’s memoirs weren’t worth squat to begin with. Like Hamlet, the conclusion of this film can be summed up with two words: everybody dies.
This sick attempt at cinema only serves to make you appreciate the people who do it right. The Coen Brothers waded into unfamiliar water with this unsuccessful blend of espionage, crime and comedy. Instead, they should have left it to experts like Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch) and Charles Crichton (A Fish Called Wanda).
The plot (hah!) revolves around Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), a lowly CIA analyst who loses his memoirs in a gym. This in turn causes him to spew expletives for the rest of the film as if he was going for the world record. Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand) happen to work at the gym, find his memoirs and, thinking they’re more valuable than gold, try to blackmail Cox. Their blackmail attempt falls through, Chad gets his brains blown out by thoughtless bodyguard Harry (George Clooney) and the CIA cover it all up only to find that Cox’s memoirs weren’t worth squat to begin with. Like Hamlet, the conclusion of this film can be summed up with two words: everybody dies.
This sick attempt at cinema only serves to make you appreciate the people who do it right. The Coen Brothers waded into unfamiliar water with this unsuccessful blend of espionage, crime and comedy. Instead, they should have left it to experts like Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch) and Charles Crichton (A Fish Called Wanda).
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