The Coen's Burn After Reading took a bit of a critical mauling upon first release, and probably deservedly so.
Just about.
The plot:
John Malkovich plays Osbourne Cox, soon to be retired CIA agent whose assistant frequents a local gymnasium. Whilst there, she inadvertently leaves her gym bag, in which is a disk containing a working copy of Cox's memoirs. Two gym employees discover the bag and decide that, instead of handing it in, they should attempt to extort as much money as possible from 'interested parties'. Trouble is, they have no idea what they are looking at, nor who would be interested.
So begins a cat and mouse game of espionage bumbling of epic proportions.
A bit of a knockabout comedy, the humour here is broader than usual for the Coen's, Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy notwithstanding.
Malkovich is excellent as the visibly enraged agent, as are Coen stalwarts Clooney and McDormand, but special mention must be made of Pitt's performance which is just....odd. Wacky and irritating is about the best fit, to the extent that I began to suspect he had discovered Scientology.
Whilst not a patch on the Coen's more weighty works, this was never meant to be viewed as such and, as a bit of throwaway fluff, it passed an hour and a half.
I'll never watch it again, though, and I don't say that about many of their films.
Average.
3 out of 5.
But only just.
No comments:
Post a Comment