Burn After Reading

January 3rd, 2009

OR “Return After Renting”

By Jeff

“We came up with the idea for Burn After Reading actually just thinking about parts that we might want to write for actors that we knew that might be fun to throw together” – Ethan Coen

And, unfortunately, this is why in the Coen brother’s masterful career resume, Burn After Reading falls in the low end of the barrel.

Despite giving the Coen brothers their biggest opening box-office draw and their first #1 weekend (two statistics which I can assure you the Coens care n-o-t-h-i-n-g about), Burn After Reading represents the two brothers working on an ‘auto-pilot’ level, which we’ve seen them do before in the past few years (see Intolerable CrueltyThe Ladykillers).

These so-so films carry all the distinct characteristics associated with the work of the Coens. You could see a one-minute clip and recognize it’s written and directed by them simply by the dialogue, pacing and efficient camerawork that Joel and Ethan have established as wholly their own.

However, what’s lacking in these films is the unbearable sense of tension that hovers thick in the air during No Country for Old MenFargo and Blood Simple. The fresh aura of curiosity and wonderment that is lightheartedly present throughout The Big LebowskiO Brother, Where Art Thou and Raising Arizona. And who could forget the dripping, existential ebb and flow of Miller’s CrossingBarton Fink, and The Man Who Wasn’t There.

Burn After Reading comes across as a skit. At only 90 minutes, it actually still manages to feel long-winded. The most redeemable aspect comes from the cast of A-list actors who are willing to play whatever wacky character (and don whatever crazy hair-do) that the Coens demand of them.

If you thought Javier Bardem’s pageboy in No Country was odd, wait til you see what they did to Brad Pitt, who gives the most electrifying performance of the film as severely dim-witted gym trainer Chad Feldheimer. It’s clear from the moment Pitt first walks on screen that he hasn’t had this much fun since his early roles in Thelma and Louise and True Romance. He fine-tunes his performance to a high degree, from the way he sips his water bottle to the very limited set of vocabulary he has to rely on, that some critics were even talking him up for a Best Supporting Actor nod (but with so many other great performances in this category this year, it won’t happen).

When Chad stumbles onto a disk in the gym locker that seems to reveal CIA codes, he ropes co-worker Linda Litzke (a firecracker Frances McDormand, who is officially Hollywood’s bravest working actress) into making ransom demands of the owner, mid-level CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (played in a vulgar one-note style by John Malkovich). Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, Richard Jenkins, and J.K. Simmons also all work their way into the plot, which is over-stuffed with characters but not with enough new ideas.

It was probably a good idea for the Coens to follow-up their heavy handed Oscar winner No Country for Old Men with a comedy. However, it would have been nice if they had spent a little more time with the script and story instead of just being complacent with compiling an array of great actors to play peculiar characters.

Will it gain a cult following like all of the Coen brother’s films eventually have, save the few I mentioned above? I don’t much think so, but hey, maybe it will grow on me upon second viewing (like all the Coen bros films seem to find a way of doing).

 However, it certainly is reassuring to know that the two brothers currently have no less than FIVE films in various stages of production and I already can see a large wave of quirky, classic cinema looming over the horizon…

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