Karen Kraft
29
- Joined
- May 18, 2002
- Posts
- 36,253
Burn After Reading (2008) is the Coen brothers’ latest film, starring George Clooney, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, and Tilda Swinton. For those of you who still have a bitter taste in your mouth from the relentlessly depressing No Country for Old Men (2007), Burn After Reading is a refreshing comedy. With unblemished performances from Clooney, Pitt, and Malkovich, Ethan and Joel Coen return to the more traditional Hollywood format, complete with and ending – an ubrupt ending, but an ending nevertheless. Although this is yet again a dark and nihilistic comedy, deserving of its “R” rating (for violence), there are moments when everyone in the theater actually laughs out loud. None of the “deaths” are funny – that’s not what it’s about – but this film is crafted to deliver top notch entertainment. Only the latte crowd will find it necessary to ferret out deeper meaning, beyond the standard Coen Brothers’ theme – people are self-centered and self-absorbed.
This is a send-up of the snappy non-James-Bond spy films that put bread on the tables in both the U.S. and England for two decades. It is not narrated, which is a blessing sometimes, so only the audience gets to see the big picture. None of the characters know what is going on. That’s the reverse of so many movies where the audience is kept in the dark (NPI) until the end, when “all is revealed.” Here, we know exactly what is happening 100% of the time, and watch the characters struggle to get themselves out of the mess each one managed to create for himself. Few things work out, of course, so at least to that extent, it’s true to life. There is no real goal in the plot, only the treat of watching life as it all too often seems to be, played out through each character’s dumb ideas of how to solve his or her respective problem. We examine the different approaches taken by each set of characters – one for each generation and covering the two “classes” of folks living and working inWashington D.C. – as they seek to resolve the problems that are dumbly and gratuitously thrust upon them.
If you like the Coen brothers, you will love this film. Long on comedy, relatively short on blood as their movies to, this is a fun movie to go see.
Dialog snippet:
Clooney (Harry Pfarrer): Go around the corner, we'll do it in the back.
Tilda Swinton (Katie Cox): You're so coarse.
Clooney (Harry Pfarrer): Back of the car... not the rear entry situation...
This is a send-up of the snappy non-James-Bond spy films that put bread on the tables in both the U.S. and England for two decades. It is not narrated, which is a blessing sometimes, so only the audience gets to see the big picture. None of the characters know what is going on. That’s the reverse of so many movies where the audience is kept in the dark (NPI) until the end, when “all is revealed.” Here, we know exactly what is happening 100% of the time, and watch the characters struggle to get themselves out of the mess each one managed to create for himself. Few things work out, of course, so at least to that extent, it’s true to life. There is no real goal in the plot, only the treat of watching life as it all too often seems to be, played out through each character’s dumb ideas of how to solve his or her respective problem. We examine the different approaches taken by each set of characters – one for each generation and covering the two “classes” of folks living and working inWashington D.C. – as they seek to resolve the problems that are dumbly and gratuitously thrust upon them.
If you like the Coen brothers, you will love this film. Long on comedy, relatively short on blood as their movies to, this is a fun movie to go see.
Dialog snippet:
Clooney (Harry Pfarrer): Go around the corner, we'll do it in the back.
Tilda Swinton (Katie Cox): You're so coarse.
Clooney (Harry Pfarrer): Back of the car... not the rear entry situation...
