Review

People are interesting to say the least. Have you ever sat and watched how funny people are? Have you ever looked at yourself and seen how funny you are? We do weird things, behave irrationally and take ourselves far too seriously. Burn After Reading pokes fun at life and people in general.

The story in itself is so confusing and ridiculous that it’s funny. The plot balances on a thin spy-thriller rope. It involves a CD lost by a disgraced CIA employee and found by a couple of, to put it nicely, unintelligent gym employees. What it really covers though is a collection of caricature (fancy word for exaggerated personality) studies stirred together and displayed for the world to see. It’s real are raw and different to most movies you will ever see. It is a commentary on the complete idiocy of man kind. With the catch phrase, “intelligence is relative,” it has to be.

What keeps this movie from going in all the wrong directions is essentially brilliant acting. Brad Pitt and George Clooney seem to love playing their idiotic characters as they experience some of the most absurd things. Full credit must be given to Frances McDormand who really shines as a totally believable idiotic gym worker, Brad Pitt’s co-worker, who is obsessed with having cosmetic surgery.

As usual, movies with sex, nudity, violence, and bad language loose points with me. For two main reasons: As a Christian I don’t appreciate it, an explanation which comes with so many different questions but I will leave it at that. The second is that it limits the amount of people who can watch it or would be willing to. This is not a family movie in any sense. This movie is only rated 13 yet it contains the full collection of SNVL. Although I will not rant about the disgusting job the ratings board is doing at the moment it should have been rated 16 at least.

Although the movie can and probably will be totally overbearing to the average viewer it provides an originality and truth that is undeniable. This one is for an acquired taste.

7/10

Synopsis

At the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Arlington, Va., analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) arrives for a top-secret meeting. Unfortunately for Cox, the secret is soon out: he is being ousted. Cox does not take the news particularly well and returns to his Georgetown home to work on his memoirs and his drinking, not necessarily in that order. His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is dismayed, though not particularly surprised; she is already well into an illicit affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a married federal marshal, and sets about making plans to leave Cox for Harry. Elsewhere in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and seemingly worlds apart, Hardbodies Fitness Centers employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) can barely concentrate on her work. She is consumed with her life plan for extensive cosmetic surgery, and confides her mission to can-do colleague Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). Linda is all but oblivious to the fact that the gym's manager Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins) pines for her even as she arranges dates via the Internet with other men. When a computer disc containing material for the CIA analyst's memoirs accidentally falls into the hands of Linda and Chad, the duo are intent on exploiting their find. As Ted frets, "No good can come of this," events spiral out of everyone's and anyone's control, in a cascading series of darkly hilarious encounters.

Release Date

Fri 09 Jan 2009 (South Africa)

Cast

George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, and Brad Pitt.

Director

Joel Coen; Ethan Coen

Producers

Joel Coen; Ethan Coen

Trailer