This is a comedic tale of espionage. An ousted CIA official's memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise gym employees intent on exploiting their find.
Burn After Reading, otherwise known as the movie where John Malkovich exasperatedly mutters "what the fuck" in a series of increasing frustration for ninety minutes. No, that's not entirely correct, but if that was actually what the entire movie was, I would watch the hell out of it. Anyway- Burn After Reading is a crime/comedy film from the Coen Brothers starring George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, and several other fairly well known actors. The plot bounces off all of these quirky characters, but it centers around a missing disc containing secret government information and some adultery-committing adults. I'm probably not the only one who will say this is one of the weaker Coen films, and although it has its dark comedy flair, it's about as clever and unique as many of the other movies in this genre. The well known actors all provided for their individual comedic moments, but Brad Pitt really shone as the dimwitted goofball Chad, and this is my favorite performance from him. However, it takes about 1/3 of the runtime to even finish getting thoroughly introduced to all these characters before the plot even begins, which was a little bit tedious considering the supposed comical thriller I signed up for. The characters were interesting enough, but I can never believe Clorge Jooney as a silly actor, and his reactions felt rather staged at a couple points in the film. The last thirty minutes of this movie I was waiting for something to happen, and it didn't wrap up the way I hoped at all- there was no payoff or clever resolve, just as I felt in Hail Ceasar. It was just two guys taking a recap of the events that happened off camera. Why would you do that rather than actually watching these events go down? It's just bizarre. This movie is still rather entertaining despite all these things, but I can't say I really loved it or want to see it again.
