Directed by: The Coen Brothers
Premise: Personal trainers at a small independent
gym discover a data CD that contains the memoir of former CIA analyst. Assuming
that the information on the disk is sensitive material, the trainers try to
ransom it with disastrous results. At the same time, the analyst’s wife is
having an affair with a friend who is a former spy.
What Works: The Coen Brothers strength has always
been their offbeat but sympathetic characters. Burn After Reading is no
exception and it has some solid performances by Francis McDormand as an insecure personal trainer in the midst of a
midlife crisis, Brad Pitt as her goofy, ambiguously gay coworker, and George
Clooney as a sex addicted former spy. Of these, McDormand gets the best material
as her character is pushed to the breaking point. Another hallmark of the Coen
Brothers is their ability to reinvent genre. Burn After Reading is an espionage thriller but cast with non-genre
character types. The film has some laughs although not the big belly laughs of The
Big Lebowski, which remains the Coen’s best work.
What Doesn’t: Although the characters are a lot
of fun to watch, Burn After Reading also showcases the Coen's primary
weakness: story structure. The film is too slow to start, many scenes overstay
their welcome, going on past the point in which they’ve accomplished their
narrative goal, and the ending of the film does not reveal anything or bring
matters to a satisfactory conclusion. It’s not as disastrous as the ending to No
Country for Old Men but it’s still a let down.
Bottom Line: Burn After Reading is fun but forgettable, a film that ranks somewhere near the bottom of the Coen Brother’s filmography.