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Burn After Reading
Movie Stats & Links |
Starring: |
George Clooney,
Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton,
J.K. Simmons |
MPAA Rated: |
R |
Released By: |
Focus Features |
Web Site: |
burnafterreading.com |
Kiddie Movie: |
For the love of
your children, leave them at home. |
Date Movie: |
If she likes
espionage and is kind of kinky. |
Gratuitous Sex: |
Talk, The
Liberator, and a chair. |
Gratuitous
Violence: |
Someone carries a
gun and it goes off, and I'm not talking about his wiener. |
Action: |
Nope. |
Laughs: |
Tons, once you get
into it. |
Memorable
Scene: |
Harry might be a
psychopathic killer! |
Memorable
Quote: |
Too many to quote. |
Directed By: |
Joel and Ethan
Coen |
Produced By: |
Tim Bevan, Ethan
Coen, Joel Coen, Eric Fellner |
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Burn After Reading
A Movie Review |
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And just when you think Harry (George Clooney) is a bad
guy in "Burn After Reading," you just come to realize that
he really just wants to make his wife, and maybe some other
women, happy.
Such is part of the twisted tale of "Burn After Reading,"
a movie from the Coen boys, that takes a little bit of time
to get going, but once it kicks in, be ready to laugh, be
ready to shriek, and be ready to wonder if a boob job is
really worth keeping a government secret.
The basic premise is that Osborne Cox (John Malkovich),
married to Katie (Tilda Swinton), works for the CIA, but
rather than getting demoted, he decides to quit, much to the
dismay of Katie. But Osborne has a plan, and in a weird
twist of copying information from a computer, a CD with
information that looks like super-secret spy information
falls into the hands of Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances
McDormand). Chad and Linda are trainers at a local fitness
center where Linda is obsessed with getting some plastic
surgery to maintain her aging physique although she doesn’t
have the cash, while Chad is just a dope, who is more
fascinated in the game of having a super-secret spy CD, and
if some money rolls his way, oh, what the hell?
So Chad and Linda begin their escapade to trade the CD
back to Osborne, for a sizeable reward of course, but in the
meantime events have been set in motion that will intertwine
all of their lives, much to the confusement of the CIA
superior dude, played by J.K. Simmons. It turns out that
multiple people are sleeping with other people, some
divorces are in play, and when government secrets are
involved, as is the Russian consulate, things can get really
weird, really fast, and as "Burn After Reading" ends up at
its conclusion, well, you might wonder who you were really
rooting for in this movie. That doesn’t matter because I
think they all get what they deserve, except for maybe Chad,
who got what he deserved only because he is a dope.
The thing with "Burn After Reading" is that as you are
trying to get yourself through the first 30 minutes or so,
you will probably be scratching your head quite a bit,
wondering why, if he is sleeping with her, and she is
looking for love on the internet, and he might be an
alcoholic, well, how will these stories intertwine, but let
me tell you, the Coen brothers do their best to weave a
twisted tale of infidelity, government espionage, and sex
furniture, into a fun-filled movie that if you let yourself
go with it, and might just give you a laugh that will have
that soda coming out of your nose if you take that drink at
the wrong time.
I can understand people not liking "Burn After Reading,"
but for me, I loved it. I didn’t 5 Star love it, because it
did take a while to get moving, but Brad Pitt playing a dope
was so spot on, the laugh I got with those in the theater
that probably subscribe to magazines like Rolling Stone,
Maxim, or Playboy was great, and as preposterous as most
everything was in the movie, it just worked so well that I
didn’t care once things started rolling. With all of that,
and with a lot of weird laughter, I’m giving "Burn After
Reading" 4 stars out of 5. It’s all adult fare, and fine,
you can probably wait until the movie hits the DVD side, but
I laughed a lot. Government espionage meets kinky sex. And
Brad Pitt as a dope: If that intrigues you, you’ll probably
like "Burn After Reading," too.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!!
L8R!!! |