directed by: Joel & Ethan Coen
movie review/analysis
written by Gavin Miller
Burn After Reading is a movie that I admire for many reasons. It's a black comedy that doesn't follow the rules, features some one-of-a-kind performances, and while it's not perfect, what it does is hilarious, entertaining and fun.
I love the Coen brothers. Their films are always of great quality, with trademark characteristics, fantastic soundtracks, great cinematography... etc. Burn After Reading is no exception. It may be a slightly minor entry into the Coens' body of work, but you can tell they had a lot of fun with this one, never taking itself too seriously and constantly fast paced, genre jumping and quirky -- like a Coen movie should. It's really funny too, maybe not Big Lebowski funny, but it kept me laughing. Again, this is a dark comedy and the film is certainly dark at times, but always with a strong comedic undercurrent. The plot is nothing extremely special; the "highly classified shit" (as Brad Pitt's character gleefully announces) of a recently fired CIA member Osbourn Cox (Malkovich) falls into the hands of two oblivious employees of a gym (McDormant and Pitt), and the mayhem ensues. Anyway, for me it's the characters who make this movie work. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Francis McDormant, John Malkovich and the rest of the cast are all extremely likable and funny and their roles are very well-written. I liked Brad Pitt the best in the movie. I think that Pitt is an underrated actor that never gets enough credit for his acting talents, and in this he just really stole the movie. This isn't a movie for everyone though; some will be confused about what exactly the movie is trying to do, and could end up being unsatisfied. It's true the film doesn't really have an conclusion. It just kind of ends abruptly, but I don't think it takes away from the movie really. In the end, we have a slightly messy, but never sloppy movie that could have been annoying in another director's hands, but handled expertly by the Coen brothers, its awesome.
My score: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment