Jon Peters Reviews: “Burn After Reading”
The Coens are coming off an incredible sweep at last year’s Oscar, mounting last year’s most dominating film, ‘No Country for Old Men’. I don’t know how much personal thought they put into choosing their next project after winning the two biggest Oscars, Best Picture and Best Director, but fans will ponder. It’s to bad most will even question this, as ‘Burn After Reading’ is a really good film. If ‘No Country for Old Men’ is like pitching a no-hitter in baseball, anything else is impossible to stand up next to such perfection, but the Coen Brothers come out for their follow-up and pitched superbly, like a two-hit gem.
There are many things that are enjoyable here. The plot is simple enough; two dimwits find a CD that could contain some ‘secret FBI shit’, as Chad (Brad Pitt) puts it, but in reality it’s just the working memoirs of an ex-agent (the wonderful John Malkovich), Osborn Cox. But the Coens just run with it, as everyone knows it’s just memoirs except for every character in the film, sans Cox. With this the film plays out like a spy film, something like the filmmaking during the Cold War gave us. Everyone’s paranoid, the music is pulsing, and tension runs high. Except that the film follows ‘morons in a league of morons’ as Cox puts it.
There are plenty of chances for the Coens to put in dark humor and they do. JK Simmons has a brief part as a head honcho at the FBI, but steals the ending right out from most of the perfectly casted actors. Brad Pitt nearly steals the show with his Chad, who’s a lovable gym instructor but clueless as all hell. Clooney runs with his worm of a character, an internet-love seeker with plenty of quirks. To me though, this film is Malkovich’s show. He owns every scene and is in the film’s funniest and best scene with Chad. It superbly written, as Chad is unknowingly blackmailing Cox into what he thinks should be a just reward for the CD. Cox is not amused at the attempt and can see right through Chad’s naiveté. Pitt adds these little eye slants that add to his character like Chad thinks he’s being smart and is involved with something serious. He isn’t and the comedy plays against Malkovich’s serious tone. It’s pretty hilarious scene.
Like ‘No Country for Old Men’, the ending is somewhat of a tangent but reviewing it closer fully adds to the overall film experience. While it isn’t as ambiguous as ‘No Country’s', it helps the overall theme of the film. The film is a satirical look at the spy genre with a multiple characters being unwillingly roped into something beyond them, each one is as clueless as the next and it’s ultimately confusion by JK Simmons character that sums up the film. A September release seemed odd for a follow-up to an Oscar winning picture but was the right move. It’ll allow ‘Burn After Reading’ the proper time to be correctly evaluated instead of a late fall release which would have put it into thicker scrutiny.
This is a dark film in terms of where it goes to find its humor, but ‘Burn After Reading’ is a really good film, worth seeing almost immediately if not for Pitt or Malkovich, but for more Coen goodness.
