Movie Review- "Burn after Reading"

Most people have seen the preview for this movie and gone "huh...Clooney and Pitt.....what's it about....I don't get it"

Well, your omnipotent movie reviewer did not care about Clooney or Pitt....or John Malcavich(sp)...or Frances McDormand...or Tilda Swinton. That's 3 oscar winners there people. I was excited to see this movie because it was written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. These guys are on my "Who do I want meet?" section of my MySpace page. Blood Simple, Fargo, No Country for Old Men ,and my personal favorite....The Big Lebowski.

Now, I grant you that these movies are they types you either hate or love. I think Quentin Tarantino movies are the same.......it's either a religious experience like Pulp Fiction and Resevoir Dogs or a "what in the hell was that" experience like Jackie Brown or the Kill Bill movies.

**For the record, Tarantino's movies should be put in a time capsule. He is a friggin genius man.....how could you not like Pulp Fiction?........I better stop.

Right, the movie I'm reviewing is Burn after Reading. The premise is pretty simple for Coen standards. Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt (he does a really good job in this, and I hate him) work at a health club called...get this...."Hardbodies!" She wants to get massive cosmetic surgery, I mean the whole buffet and Pitt is just witless. Somehow, they come across a CD filled with what think is top secret CIA crap. You know...the actual whereabouts of Bin Laden...Kennedy Conspiracy..that kinda junk. Well, they try to black mail Malkovich into giving them cash for this secret disc....and then all falls down.

Malcovich (playing an enraged alcholic) doesnt want to play ball and muddles things up. Clooney comes along as a spy himself that brags the he's never fired his weapon (you will get the inside joke of that if you see this film.) Clooney's role is not effective and lost on me. Long story short, everything goes wrong for everybody and that's supposed to be funny. It was....in parts.

The last movie I rated worth a crap was Tropic Thunder and Im wondering if something better is ever going to come along. Burn after Reading really didn't have a punch line. Pitt acting a fool was funny, but there wasn't much else. I think this movie had too many movie stars in it. I felt like everyone had to have a scene...then we'd move onto another scene with the next superstar in line. It's a bad habit Big Budget movies do.....put a crapful of great actors/actresses in a movie and then don't give them anything worthwhile to work with.

Anyway, it wasn's all that bad. Maybe Im being harsh because of the Coen Brothers, but this was more "The Ladykillers" than "Raising Arizona." B-