Comedy Movie Review: Burn After Reading

This is a movie review of Burn After Reading.

Plot Summary (courtesy of IMDB):

Osbourne Cox, a Balkan expert, is fired at the CIA, so he begins a memoir. His wife wants a divorce and expects her lover, Harry, a philandering State Department marshal, to leave his wife. A diskette of Osbourne's musings falls out of a gym bag at a Georgetown fitness center. Two employees there try to turn it into cash: Linda, who wants money for elective surgery, and Chad, an amiable goof. They try to sell the disc back to Osbourne, who has a short fuse, then they visit the Russian embassy. To sweeten the pot, they decide they need more of Osbourne's secrets. Meanwhile, Linda's boss likes her, and Harry's wife leaves for a book tour. All roads lead to Osbourne's house.

Run Time: 96 Minutes

Movie Review:

Burn After Reading, shows that the Coen Brothers (Fargo, Oh Brother Where Art Though, No Country For Old Men) sometimes get it wrong. This movie is a mid-life crisis faux spy flick that goes no where.

Third in their self titled "Idiot Trilogy" the brothers wrote all parts but one for every specific actor that was in the movie. Some of them work and some of them don't. Brad Pitt as an idiot fitness instructor works about as well as Angelina Jolie playing the mother on "Leave it to Beaver." The Coen Brothers use their familiar writing and directing style to try to tell this story. But they bring nothing fresh to the table. Their wittiness that was in previous movies just seems old and stale in this one. And their choice of the same actors over and over has gotten redundant. They need to start working with new talent more frequently so they don't get into a boring rut such as this movie gives us.

There are some funny parts throughout the movie and an older target audience would find more to relate to. The idea of mid-life crisis are well played throughout the movie and Frances McDormand (Joel Coen's wife) puts off a great performance as a gym employee who wants to remake herself through plastic surgery, which in turn gets her involved in the movies scheme.

Movie Review photo credit: wikipedia.org

Overall Movie Review Rating: I rate this movie as a Blah See - 2.5 stars

Comedy Movie Review: Burn After ReadingTweet this!