BURN AFTER READING ~ ????
(IMDB Rating: 7.6/10 out of 32?037 votes)
I had Burn After Reading right after Tropic Thunder. Both are claimed to be comedies, yet in a very different manner. It is Stiller Vs. The Coen Brothers! Just so you know, the Coen brothers just won this year’s Oscar for No Country for Old Men. I am not familiar with Coen’s humour, as No Country is more like a crime thriller, based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy. So, Burn After Reading is my second shot with the Coen’s production.
Shall we have a sneak peak first?
~Check out the Trailer ~
Looks not bad huh? I personally find the trailer more amusing than the movie itself. I couldn’t explain why, it just looks funnier that way.
As I can see you’re anxious for the movie, why don’t we jump in the actions first before I go bla bla bla.. I’ve decided to make it brief, instead of a lengthy, complete synopsis I used to do, ‘cause i don’t think it would make much sense in words, except everything is in complete chaos:
Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), a former CIA analysist, quits his job after being demoted. He then decides to write a memoir about his life as a CIA agent. His wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton a.k.a. the Ice Queen in Narnia), is two-timing him with Harry (George Clooney), and secretly planning for her divorce with Osborne.
In order to secure her status for the divorce, she copies whatever information she can get from Osbourne’s PC, and hands over the compact disc to her lawyer. Now, the secretary of the law firm is a regular at the Hardbodies Gymnasium. One day, she misplaces the CD and the gym coach, Chad (Brad Pitt) has his hands on it! What will a pretty boy do with a CD full of government informations? Return it? Of course! But not until the owner repays him with an attractive ‘reward’! *evil grin*
Chad has an idea and joins forces with his co-worker, Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), who desperately needs some cash for her cosmetic surgery! Both of them try to blackmail Osborne in a totally non-professional way. Osborne is surprised, furious, and clueless about the entire thing! Oh, did I mention Osborne keeps to the bottle, and having trouble controlling his anger? He swears awfully a lot for his age. Anyway, he refuses to cut the deal, even hits Chad at the face during their one-time-only dealing discussion.
Disappointed and angry, both Chad and Linda bring the CD to the Russian embassy instead, hoping for more attention and reward that they deserved! In order to provide more information for the Russians, Linda suggests Chad to break-in and locate more information from Cox’s resident.
Here comes the ugly part, while on his mission, Chad is being shot directly at his pretty face!By Osborne? NO!! He has been kicked out of the house by his wife who changes all the locks without his consent! So who did it then? Is Harry! Remember the wife’s lover? Panicked, he thinks he has killed a CIA agent, since Chad carries no ID with him. So, Harry dumps the corpse, and living in paranoid for the rest of the scenes.
Later, Harry catches up with the guy that follows him around in a black car, whom he thinks is working for the CIA. To his surprise, the guy is hired by a law firm to collect evidence of him cheating, as his very own wife will be divorcing him soon! Harry doesn’t see that coming at all, and by the way, his wife is also cheating on him too. Talking about happily ever after!
Harry then looks for Linda to seek comfort, whom he met earlier during a blind date. After he finds out the co-worker that Linda is worrying sick about is actually Chad, all hell break loose! He freaks out and storms off. Later he boards on a plane and escapes to Venezuela, hiding from the CIAs, who has no intention to track him down at all.
Unable to find Chad, Linda concludes that he has been kidnapped! Her emotional roller coaster and anxiety are all in the eyes of her secret admirer, the gym manager, Ted. Talking about being a hero, he sneaks in Cox’s house for the information to save Chad’s from the kidnappers, which by the way, never existed. Unfortunately, the last thing he wishes to find is the angry Osborne, with a guy in his hand. He shoots Ted, after assuming he has something to do with the blackmailing, and finishes him off with a hatchet.
Later, we finds out Osborne is gunned down by the real CIA agents who are surveiling outside his house, upon seeing him attacking Ted. Now, Osborne is in a vegetative state at the hospital. Unsure of his chance of waking up, the CIA decides to leave him alone. So, what happens to Linda? She is being brought to the CIA Headquarters, and agrees to cooperate with them (to clear things up, maybe) only if they can provide her the money she needs for her cosmetic surgery. And you know what? The CIA agrees to Linda’s offer. Case closed.
So, what do you get from the summary? Pure
chaos theory! The ending just left me hanging there, with a big ‘Huh??’ and lots of question marks. Perhaps it tries to depict human problems nowadays, such as job disciplinary, adultery, low self-esteem, failure of dealing with anger that leads to false judgment, and idiocracy. It’s not a happy ending, or is it? As Linda managed to get the fund for her cosmetic surgery anyway! At least somebody is happy, unfortunately her friends had to pay for her with their lives. It’s a dark comedy, with a bunch of paranoid and silly people, running into each other, and mess things up. It’s merely for entertainment and some laughters. But, a brilliant, outstanding piece of work? Hmm.. not really. Personal opinion, I’ll give Burning After Reading a 6.5/10.
How about Tropic Thunder Vs. B.A.R??
The pretty guys… Who stands out?
So, who is it gonna be? Tom or Brad? The ladies would probably be screaming their names now! I don’t want to create a chaos by picking sides, yet I do salute both of them for their talented acting in some of the movies, back in the days. No doubt, Tom & Brad are brilliant actors!
However, in the aspect of standing out + freaking everybody out in those 2 movies, the winner would be no other than Tom. He gave a total ‘slamdunk’ performance. I’m like jaw-dropped, to see him acting so un-Tom-Cruise-ly in Tropic Thunder. I’m not used to watching him playing a foul-mouthed, sarcastic, hairy, middle-age bold guy, with a protruding stomach. Not to mention shaking his buttocks, dancing with a hip hop music. Crazy as it seems, he IS in a Stiller movie, isn’t he?
Not that Brad isn’t any good. In Coen’s flick, he plays a silly & naïve guy who works in a Gym. But I still enjoyed seeing him making some silly dance moves, and the frat-boyish acting, you jut can’t hate a character like that! Anyway, the guy has to loosen up once in a while, he’s now a father of… 6? 7 kids? I kinda lost count… Well, both are comedies, so, just enjoy it!
Fun Facts!
One last thing though, check out the writers’ name below for both movies:
Tropic Thunder
- Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Etan Cohen (who also writes for Madagascar 2)
Burn After Reading
- Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Notice the similarities of both names? What are the odds of that??
Copyright © 2008 by Wong Ching Ya, All Rights Reserved, “BURN AFTER READING : Movie Spree (7) ! “.
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Hi Ching Ya,
thanx for taking your time and drop by to my blog. I find difficulty to navigate around your site at first but luckily you guide me. ^^, have a nice day…
Ha.. thanks Sayz for willing to go through the troubles, and left me a comment anyway. Truly appreciate it. I remember the first time I tried to solve this ‘comment-dropping’ issue, unable, due to the limitation of this 3rd party theme layout. Anyhow, glad that you’ve come around in the end. =) Thanks, and welcome back anytime.
Just stopping in to say hi, and thanks for visiting my blog. I haven’t been online much lately, but I’ll try to stop in a little more often.
Hi Tammy, thanks for dropping by. =) I understand as it’s the time to get busy.. I’m having trouble myself to balance the times between on and offline too. Well, good to have you back. Have a wonderful holiday and I’ll see you around soon.
I saw Burn After Reading the other day and enjoyed it. It wasn’t the best film I’ve ever seen but I enjoyed the performances of the actors and while the ending left me sitting there going ‘hah?’ I can see why they did it.
Hi Jen, nice to see you dropping by. =)
Since it's a comedy flick, I decided to cut it some slack. Brad was funny, so was Clooney, and definitely Frances & John M. Maybe we should just forget how the story ends and enjoy the show. *wink*
David Rasche, I remembered seeing him in Sledge Hammer! What a show back then.. "Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing!", which clearly he isn't! Gosh, I miss the show..
Burn After Reading DVD is already out..this is a great film…..it’s concept is incredible, amazing, unique and perfectly orchestred by the cohen!There is nothing to say!awesome movie, such a smart story…its like one of those movies that everybody is tied together but its comedic!..Brad Pitt is hilarious! hes such a goof in this movie… i’ll going to get a deep discount dvd copy of this movie…
Welcome, Jen, and thanks for your comment. I’m glad you enjoyed the movie. =)
I thought Burn After Reading was a sort of “by-the-numbers” outing for two of the industry’s leading directors. It had it’s moments for sure, but it certainly wasn’t as funny as many of thier films (Raising Arizona come to mind), and was wierdly dark, but didn’t do that as well as previous efforts either (Fargo comes to mind).
All-in-all, I wasn’t super-dissapointed, but it’s not on my Christmas list