As I See It

This weekend, as rain and wind blew in from Ike down south, I went to go see a movie that was expected to be clever and funny. I sometimes like a movie in spite of myself . Often I feel moved or compelled to enjoy a film just because I have decided before hand that I am going to like it. I had a glimmer of this as I sat in my seat to view the Coen brother’s new film, Burn After Reading. I had an expectation going in of what the movie would be like, of how amused I would be or how intrigued I would feel. However, those expectations were soured as the reality of the movie became clear.

It wasn’t one aspect of the movie, so much, that turned me off, but the composite of a bunch of things put together. To begin with, you will hear a lot of positive feedback about this movie(for the most part critics love it), but I am not convinced that is because of the film itself, but rather that every Coen Brother’s movie of recent history has been raved and well-received. The movie follows, bizarrely at times, the intertwining lives of a group of narcissistic federal workers as they collide with unexpected black mailers from a local gym. I, frankly, am not 100% sure what the movie was even about half the time. Was is about the ridiculousness of the American government? Did it mean to poke fun at those we trust with our National Security? Was it merely a statement on how ignorance can lead to disaster? These are questions I will never know the answer to, because, honestly, I’m not sure the filmmakers know.

John Malkovich plays the angry, drunken Osborne Cox, who is at the middle of this ever-swirling pot of insane, selfish characters. The film begins with him being fired, cursing his institution, and leaving to write his “memoirs”. His wife, a harsh and severe doctor, chastises him and tells her lover(played by George Clooney) she wants out. Clooney, a sex addicted perv, seems intent on one thing only: having his cake and eating it too. Through a series of unfortunate events(that hardly make sense), two employees at Hardbodies gym(Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt) get a hold of a disk containing what they ridiculously assume is valuable intelligence belonging to Osborne Cox. McDormand’s character, Linda Litzke, is single, obsessed with getting plastic surgery, and frankly, a little slutty. She and Chad(this would be Pitt, who is my only bright spot in the whole movie) begin to foolishly blackmail Cox. All goes straight to hell and thus supposed genius is born.

I won’t tell you how the film comes together, or why I lost interest towards the end. Should you decide to see the movie, I’d hate to ruin it for you. Be prepared for shocking, unnecessary violence. I usually think that violence is more effective when you don’t necessarily see it, but the Coen Brother’s do not agree with me, and make it very clear in this film. Besides that, the film is filled with cursing to rival most. It annoys me how supposedly intelligent, educated people, seem to have such a limited vocabulary. But beyond those two elements there are strange, surprising sexual scenarios that may have disturbed me more than the language and violence combined.

Maybe it was my own fault that I did not enjoy this film. Maybe I should have known or expected it to present the way that it did. But, I have a tendency to still want cinema to be, I don’t know, clever, pretty, saying something real. I would say NO to Burn After Reading, not because it was like watching the toilet bowl flush, but because it’s not a real movie. It is pointless, empty, violent, and frankly, not even that funny. Brad Pitt is humorous, engaging, and sympathetic, but he is not in the movie long enough to make up for everything else. Don’t go see it, but if you do, be warned: you view at your own risk.