Burn After Reading
Now this is how you follow-up a Best Picture winner. Never ones to dwell on the dark side of life, the Coen Brothers take a far-left turn from their Oscar-winner “No Country for Old Men” with a darkly comic farce that rivals their classics of comedy past- “Raising Arizona” and “The Big Lebowski”- in generating smart laughs at the expense of stupid people. When co-star George Clooney calls this the last of his “trilogy of idiots” with the Coens (after “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and “Intolerable Cruelty”), it’s not an insult.
Trying to simplify a Coen Brother movie into a brief plot description is like trying to sneak a gold brick out of Fort Knox- it’s fun to think about, but consequences are steep for those who fail. Basically, “Burn After Reading” follows a precise- if surreal- law of causality, starting with the demotion of CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), who subsequently quits, setting off a chain of events involving blackmail, cosmetic surgery, divorce, infidelity, and a logic system in our government that simply feels too out there to be true.
In more ways than one, “Burn After Reading” feels like a first cousin to “Lebowski,” both structurally and in tone. That said, Joel and Ethan make this film its’ own character compared to that cult classic. Whereas that film borrowed heavily from the film noir of old, “Reading” feels like “Fargo” on an acid trip in many ways, with several characters in way over their heads- like Hardbodies trainers Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Joel’s Oscar-winning wife Frances McDormand), clearly too incompetent for blackmail- and mysteries abound, like what happened to Cox’s wife Katie (played with icy relish by “Michael Clayton” Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton), who isn’t really seen again after we finally see her working (I wouldn’t dare reveal as what- that’s a trademark Coen Bros. surprise)? And what the Hell is that contraption horndog Treasury agent Harry (Clooney, clearly loving playing scrappy and silly for the Coens, with a hint of paranoia for good measure)- who catches the eye of serial online dater Linda (played by McDormand with the same dogged determination as her “Fargo” sheriff Marge, only a little lower on the I.Q. scale)- is making for his wife? The biggest mysteries are brought up by a CIA honcho played by the immeasurably funny J.K. Simmons, who orders his subordinate to only brief him when “it starts making sense.” Since this is the same writing/directing team behind the criminally-underrated “The Hudsucker Proxy” and the surreal Tom Hanks remake “The Ladykillers” (which, Hanks’ compulsively bizarre yet watchable performance aside, is the Coens’ unquestioned low-point), you can bet that’ll happen when Uwe Boll starts making good movies.
But if every good movie- and “Burn After Reading” is a very good movie indeed- was intended to make sense, the Coen’s would be out of a job, and we’d all lose. Where else can you see the unlikely career peak of Jeff Bridges (come on, you know the “Lebowski’s” Dude is just that), the worst way to dispose of a dead body in the snow (“Fargo’s” infamous woodchipper scene), the many deaths of Steve Buscemi (the Coen’s have filmed at least three of them), and now, in “Burn After Reading,” the coolest uncool guy in the history of film in Chad, played by Pitt with an energy and stupidity that sticks it to every hot-shot jock who ever beat you up in high school. You know, the guys who always got the hottest girls who would only talk to you when they needed you to write their term paper for them who end up being used car salesmen in real-life (or at least that’s how they play it in the movies 🙂 ). Pitt is terrific in not only illuminating his character’s dim-bulb highlights (which are almost as bright as the ones he has in his hair), but also, damn it, making us like the guy regardless, especially when he calls Cox (in Malkovich’s best turn since playing himself in “Being John Malkovich”) in the middle of the night to arrange a meeting for the secrets he and Linda uncovered. His idea of ident verification and Cox’s exasperation is a classic Coen scene that both actors play to the hilt.
But Pitt is just one piece in a very smart machine of a movie the Coen’s have made, with everyone lowering their I.Q. a bit (even Richard Jenkins as Harbodies owner Ted, who has a thing for Linda)- and, especially in the case of master cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and Coen composer Carter Burwell (doing his best work for the boys since “Fargo”), raising their game to match their Oscar-adorned leaders (who now have four Oscars a piece) in over-the-top silliness. I can live with that.
