Burn After Reading (DVD)

While not for every taste, Burn After Reading is as playful (if still bitingly acerbic and frigidly icy cold) as any of the black comedies the Coen brothers have ever crafted. While not quite rising to the level of say Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski, to say it's on par with something like say Intolerable Cruelty wouldn't be too far off the mark. It's a deliciously venal throwaway, and while the film does attempt to make some pointed comments about the declining mental acumen of American society overall it's pointlessly diverting fun and nothing more.

It all starts in the gym. After health club employees Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) find a computer disc belonging to ex-CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), the delightedly dense couple decides to live out their spy movie fantasies blackmailing the guy in hopes of gaining some quick cash. As things spiral more and more out of control, fellow CIA rube Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) – who just so happens to be having an affair with Cox's cranky pediatrician wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) – finds himself also involved (especially with Linda), all of them bumbling along like nincompoops while the rest of the spying establishment looks on in dumbfounded amazement.

Everyone is great hear (even veteran Coen stalwarts J.K. Simmons and Richard Jenkins), but it is Pitt and McDormand who make the biggest impressions. Both knock it out of the park, each appearing to be having such a fantastic time taking their respective characters to both of their logical extremes it becomes increasingly difficult to take your eyes off either of them.

What I don't like is just how thin and predictable much of it is. This is one of those crazy mixed up multi-character mysteries that aren't anywhere near as surprising as it obviously thinks it is (although, admittedly there is one pretty spectacular death scene in a closet). Like a lot of vintage Coen material, it's not so much about being innocent as it is about being slyly tenacious, and those most egotistically in tune with their own wants and desires are probably going to be the ones emerging unscathed when the bodies start flopping against the linoleum.

Universal's standard definition DVD is, like most Coen releases, stripped fairly bare. There are only three featurettes included, "Finding the Truth: the Making of Burn After Reading," "DC Insiders Run Amuck" and "Welcome Back, George." The first one is the most interesting, a bit more in-depth than the usual making-of puff piece. The latter two are really nothing more than character profiles, the majority of the cast covered in the first one while Clooney gets his own three-minute short all to himself.

The film isn't going to resonate very long after watching, but as a rental goes it's definitely worthwhile. Even when not clicking on all cylinders the Coens are still so amazingly talented and original even their mixed bags tend to be more entertaining and enjoyable than many other filmmakers' quote-unquote successes. Burn After Reading is not remotely boring, the movie so much energetically sinister fun I think most people are going to have a grand time sitting at home watching it.