Title: Burn After Reading
MPAA: R
Runtime: 96 minutes
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

When I review movies, I always like to start out with some kind of synopsis (from two Greek words, "syno", meaning "arbitrarily concise", and "psis", meaning "stuff I made up"). I won't lie to you: I watched Burn After Reading almost four days ago, and I have been sitting in front of my computer ever since, hands on the keyboard, trying to think of some way to summarize the plot. I'm getting very hungry, and the lack of sleep is starting to cause hallucinations (for example, I watched M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, and it appeared as though there was no "twist" at the end of the movie, which is impossible), so this is the synopsis I'm willing to go with:

"Burn After Reading is a movie. There are a crap-load of characters, all of whom will remind you of someone you know. Stuff happens to these characters. Then more stuff happens. Then there are so many freaking sub-plots crawling up out of the floor, the drain, the base-boards, and the vents, all vying for primary status and attempting to kill off the other sub-plots, and just when you're about to call in the exterminator because you can't keep track of what's going on, somehow one of the sub-plots emerges as the Dominant, which then viciously slaughters and consumes the others, and quietly returns to the hole from whence it came."

There you have it. A perfectly accurate synopsis that somehow manages not to squeak out even the slightest whiff of a plot spoiler. You can worship me later.

The point is, the Coen Brothers are amazing. And Burn After Reading is so multi-layered, with so many cross-threads and connecting points in its convoluted story, you will be applauding when the Brothers Coen manage to pull it all together in the end (please make sure you are alone - it can be embarrassing to start spontaneously applauding in public). If you know anything about the Coen Brothers' corpus of cinematic literature (Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Miller's Crossing, No Country for Old Men, etc.), then you know what to expect here - although, with some slight variations.

The Coen films are usually a bit on the dark side, and Burn is no exception, although it somehow feels a bit more polished than other Coen films. Not by much, just a bit. You can expect dialog that is unbelievably real, you can expect scenes to linger over real-life details (the Coen Brothers don't do "sound-byte" scenes), you can expect some top-notch performances, you can expect a wee bit of gore and violence, and you can expect to laugh out loud at some of the story's incredible situations and the way the characters deal with those situations.

John Malkovich is great in this film (as the washed up CIA agent who needs new direction), because he is allowed to be Malkovich; the movie cries out for some seriously over-the-top Malkovich-ing, and no one does a better John Malkovich than John Malkovich. George Clooney is hilarious as the paranoid womanizer - his facial expressions and inflection are, at times, cartoonishly funny. J.K. Simmons (you know him as J. Jonah Jameson, editor extraordinaire, in the Spiderman movies) has a bit role as the CIA Superior that affords him maybe three or four scenes, which is a shame - his performance is probably the show-stealer. Brad Pitt is also in his element as the slightly off-his-nut and flighty gym trainer, turning in some surprisingly funny moments.

Now then. I've praised Burn for its pleasantly complex story, its very believable realism, and the performances put in by the quite talented cast. But the Coen Brothers are always, always going to be comparable to British beer: it's strong, it's dark, it makes you burp, it can give you nightmares, it's very hearty and substantive, but if you're used to draining pop-top cans of Carbonated American Horse Urine (an image not at all intended to conjure up associations with the Clydesdales that are the well-known mascot of a certain American brewing company), then the British beer is going to seem harsh and bitter. The Coen Brothers take some getting used to (I recommend popping a few antacids before you start the film).

I'm not sure if it's because the Coen Brothers aren't afraid to show humanity on film, and humanity is (let's face it) pretty ugly sometimes, or if it's because the Coen Brothers like to inject a few radical and extreme elements into their stories to keep audiences on their toes (call it "shock factor"), but their movies can be a bit off-putting at times. As good as Burn is, it has a lot of crude language, a few quick injections of rather gruesome violence, and some sexual content that features ... well ... I can't say it out loud, so I'll just wink and clear my throat loudly, and then say, Don't go Inside Larry and Don's Optometry supply Store, ok? OK?! (If you still don't get it, I can draw you a picture)

Still ... if you've been suffering through "comedies" like Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Step Brothers, The Love Guru, and You Don't Mess with the Zohan, then I think Burn After Reading will be a welcome breath of fresh air. Lots of good stuff here, and if you watch it with a group of other people, there will be plenty of topics for discussion after the film (not the least of which will be, "Gosh, Brad Pitt seemed really natural in that role ... do you think he's a Poofter?").

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