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| Jerry Saravia... |
 Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 5:45 pm |
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BURN AFTER READING (2008)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Three stars
How do I review the Coens latest wacky comedy? Tough to say except
that it is blazingly original and wacky and schizophrenic and,
occasionally, hilarious and spectacularly uneven. You know, the usual
brand of Coens humor.
John Malkovich is CIA analyst Osborne Cox, who is beyond upset that
his services are no longer required due to rampant drunkeness. He is
unhappily married to Katie (Tilda Swinton), who is having an affair
with one of the strangest Coens characters ever, Harry Pfarrer (George
Clooney), a married and paranoid federal marshal who has a
predilection for dildos! Harry navigates an online dating service
where he meets Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), who works at a gym
called Hardbodies. It is there where the foolhardy and foolish Chad
Feldheimer (the hilarious and truly zonked-out Brad Pitt) comes upon a
computer disk that supposedly contains CIA secrets ("It is s**t and
more s**t.") Somehow all this leads to the irascible Osbourne Cox, who
is trying to write his memoirs, Cox's CIA boss (J.K. Simmons) who
hopes to make sense of all this, Pfarrer's paranoia thinking he is
being followed, and some business revolving around Litzke's planned
plastic surgery and the alleged CIA disk being sold to the Russian
Embassy.
On the Coens scale of pure frenetic idiocy, this is not as much fun as
"The Big Lebowski" but it is far superior to "Hudsucker Proxy" and
"Intolerable Cruelty." All the actors in "Burn After Reading" pretty
much overact and do it as well as you can imagine. Brad Pitt comes off
best as the most idiotic and memorable character in the Coens
universe, salivating every syllable of the Coens language to the nth
degree. Clooney is rather creepy in this film, playing a very
mysterious character to say the least. McDormand is always fun to
watch as is the underrated Richard Jenkins, the manager of Hardbodies
who doesn't like espionage. Malkovich gives the F-bombs a special kind
of lunacy with his temperamental diction - you swear he is saying the
words as if they were written by Shakespeare. Brilliant, I say.
"Burn After Reading" is manic, riotously funny and rather empty. It is
full of calories but it pretty much dissolves after its abrupt ending
and you wonder, what the heck was that all about? Why am I still
hungry after it is over? I love jokey, harebrained movies like this,
which are hardly a dime a dozen, but I am not sure what to take away
from it. Just like its equally jocose cousin, "The Big Lebowski," that
movie also ended before it should have. I guess the best way I can
describe it is like this: "Big Lebowski" was about a stained rug that
managed to involve bowling alleys, cremation, violent Vietnam Vets,
mixed identities and Yma Sumac. "Burn After Reading" is about a CIA
computer disk that involves gyms, plastic surgery, dildo contraptions,
unfortunate encounters, paranoia and some other s**t. It is good s**t
but don't ask me to analyze this s**t.
For more reviews, check out JERRY AT THE MOVIES at:
http://www.geocities.com/faustus_08520/Jerry_at_the_Movies.html
BIO on the author of this page at:
http://www.geocities.com/faustus_08520/index.html
Email me at Faust668 at (no spam) msn.com or at faustus_08520 at (no spam) yahoo.com |
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