Film - Burn After Reading

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Burn After Reading is a smart film about dumb people.And when you’re a dumb person in a smart movie (especially one by the Coen brothers), you can’t expect much sympathy. The film centres around a revolving menagerie of idiocy: there’s Brad Pitt as a vapid gym instructor, Frances McDormand almost stealing the show as a woman with body issues looking to ‘reinvent’ herself (for what, precisely, it’s unclear), George Clooney as a bumbling man-slut, and John Malkovich as a slightly less intelligent John Malkovich. Through their stupidity, small events – like finding a CD containing the memoirs of an ex-CIA analyst – quickly become huge events, and before you know it the Russians are involved and people are copping bullets between the eyes. Burn After Reading is intensely hilarious, but it’s the type of comedy that doesn’t wink to camera and let you know it’s time to chuckle. It may take a little too long for the Coens to get all the plot elements in motion, but hang in there – at least until you see Clooney’s invention. – Owen