Burn After Reading - The Coen Brothers Return With A Comedy

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Ethan and Joel Coen have made a cottage industry out of whiplash-inducing cinematic changes of direction.  From the quirky comedy of Raising Arizona to the nihilism of The Man Who Wasn’t There to the neo-noir style of Blood Simple.  The Coen Brothers are like a box of chocolates.  Only in this case, you never know which ones will gush blood when you bite into them.  Although that in and of itself is a bit unfair.  The Coen Brothers have ultimately made more comedies than any other genre.  But their biggest hits have been violent (even if they’re ostensibly comedies).  Fargo, Miller’s Crossing, No Country For Old Men and the afore mentioned Blood Simple…they most certainly aren’t afraid to shock us.  But people often overlook the quirky charm of a Raising Arizona or the retro whimsy of The Hudsucker Proxy, all because Fargo shoved Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) into a wood-chipper. 

Which brings us to their most recent outing, Burn After Reading.  Burn After Reading is a quirky, dark comedy with flashes of violence.  John Malkovich plays Osborne Cox, a career CIA man, unceremoniously demoted after decades of service.  In a fit of rage, he quits his job giving no thought as to what will come next.  Finding that he isn’t much qualified for anything else, he decides to write his memoirs and expose the CIA.  Through a series of machinations much too complicated to go into here, his memoirs find their way into the hands of Linda Litzke and Chad Feldheimer (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt), co-workers at a Washington D.C. health club.  They decide to hold Cox’s memoirs ransom.  Of course, how much luck will two health club employees have going mano-a-mano with an ex-CIA agent?  When Cox decides to not just cut them a check, Litzke and Feldheimer are bewildered and things escalate.

George Clooney plays Harry Pfarrer, an oversexed owner of a private security firm.  He’s having an affair with Cox’s wife Katie, played by Tilda Swinton.  Pfarrer is also meeting other women online and ends up in an elicit relationship with Litzke.  From there, the story is like a snake eating its own tail.  The characters keep chasing each other trying to track down something that no one really cares about.  The movie is essentially one long shaggy dog story where the joke isn’t in the punch line but in the journey.   It becomes an almost anti-conspiracy theory movie as we watch its players move about thinking they’re on to something or on the run from something when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.  

The movie hinges on McDormand’s performance and it’s a wonderful one.  She is driven by her need for plastic surgery in order to ward off the ravages of time.  She’s so certain that her age and appearance are thwarting her search for love that she’s completely oblivious to the fact her boss (played by Richard Jenkins) is pining for her.  Malkovich and Clooney both turn in fine performances.  If there’s any weakness in the film it’s Brad Pitt.  His performance is over-the-top.  I realize that his character is supposed to be a dunderheaded exercise freak.  But it’s difficult to believe Pitt in such a role.  Perhaps he’s too well known?  And, while Pitt is a fine actor, losing himself in a character has never really been his strong suit.  While his performance did get some laughs, they felt more derived from the idea of Brad Pitt acting silly than they did from the character he created.

It can be difficult to judge a Coen Brothers comedy on one viewing.  So much of the humor is often derived from the small things.  Most people found The Big Lebowski mildly amusing upon its initial release.   Over the years, it has achieved cult status even inspiring its own fan convention Lebowskifest.  Lebowski has no major laughs, no scene so memorable that it’s forever seared in America’s psyche.  It’s just a story of a guy that wants his rug back.  On paper, a rug is probably the lamest “MacGuffin” ever.  But upon repeated viewings, the movie takes on almost hypnotic quality and becomes insanely quotable.  It’s a difficult achievement for a comedy.  Very few have reached that level.  Caddyshack and Office Space come immediately to mind.  And I can’t readily think of any writer and/or director that have achieved the feat more than once.  So if Burn After Reading eventually reaches that status, it will be a remarkable accomplishment.  However, after one viewing, I don’t know if I could put it in a Big Lebowski level.  There were funny moments but I don’t know that it was as consistently funny as say, Raising Arizona.  I guess only time will tell…

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Fargo being 10 and The Ladykillers being 1, Burn After Reading gets a 6.*

*A note about my grading system:  I’m a big believer in judging a movie by what it’s trying to achieve.  That’s what I’m trying to get across in my scaling.  I’m judging a movie within its own genre.  If not, almost every film would pale in comparison to stuff like The Godfather or To Kill A Mockingbird.  The Coen Brothers have never really made a truly bad film.  Therefore a six on their scale is much higher than, say, a six on an Adam Sandler scale.  That’s why (in my opinion) a movie like Burn After Reading can get a six while a movie like The House Bunny can get seven.  Just thought you might want to know.

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