Burn After Reading (2008) is another clever comedy with quirky characters and a twisty plot from the Academy Award-winning Coen Brothers.
THE STORY: After CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) quits his job after he gets demoted for drinking. His doctor wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) then secretly files for divorce, she having an affair with womanizer Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a deputy U.S. Marshal who hunts for ladies on the internet. Preparing her case, Katie makes a CD copy of her husband’s financials, including a memoir he’s writing about his experiences, which, via an absent-minded lawyer’s assistant, ends up in the hands of a couple of not-so-smart gym trainers (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) who find it in their company’s locker room. Thinking they’ve hit the jackpot, they try to sell it back to Cox, but things only get out of hand … and then much, much worse.
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Stars: Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton
THE RUNDOWN: While Burn After Reading is not quite as sharp as earlier films from the Coen Brothers, with characters turned one notch higher than their typical roster of nutballs, this is nonetheless a very dark and very funny movie. Clooney and Pitt are great fun to watch, but just like the Coen’s Fargo, it’s McDormand who is the real draw, her spastic, self-centered Linda Litzke a terrifically unhinged personality that gets way in over her head, even as she thinks she’s got everything in hand. With a few well-earned Coen-esque moments, the film absolutely flattens out at the end though, with a finale that is just a terrible letdown after such a whirlwind of suspense.
As with nearly any Coen Brothers’ movie, it’s the writing, with some great dialogue throughout, though Francis McDormand is a standout.
That ending. What happened? To have such a build-up to such a disappointing end seems like it was rushed.
THAT MOMENT: The CD is found in the women’s locker room by Manolo (Raul Aranas), a staff member of Hardbodies Gym. Apparently not sure what it is, he hands it over to Chad Feldheimer (Pitt), who immediately pops it into the company PC, thinking it’s maybe a bunch of songs. He’s wrong. Looking it over, he begins to suspect that it’s something much more sinister and with Linda and Hardbodies’ manager Ted (Richard Jenkins) hovering over his shoulder, deduces it must be CIA secrets. Why not?
Ted wants nothing to do with it and squirms his way out of the room while Chad thinks he’s found himself a little pot of gold. Surely the agent who left this behind is desperately looking for it and as such, would pay a handsome reward. This baits Linda, who is struggling with insurance companies to pay for four cosmetic surgeries she is blindly obsessed with getting. So far, none are willing to cover the costs. Maybe a foolish CIA agent will.
She takes lead on the scheme once it becomes clear that Chad doesn’t have the gumption to be as dark as one must be when dealing with such power. Chad follows Linda’s lead, using some connections to find out who the disc belongs to, tracking it down to Osbourne Cox, who is not in a good mood when he gets a late night phone call from Chad demanding money. Not sure how the disc got made or why a couple of yahoos have possession of it, he nonetheless agrees to meet Chad and make a deal.
This goes badly for Chad of course, the nitwit way out of his league when he comes face-to-face with the highly-trained Cox, who threatens him with prison and then punches him the nose when Chad refuses to give over the CD without big cash.
Feeling she has no alternative when Cox won’t pay, Linda heads to the Russian Embassy with Chad in tow and hands over the CD for promises of money, falsely claiming she can get more. All she wants is bigger boobs, trimmer arms, and a face tuck. She’s not seeing the bit about the treason. Nor is Chad, who falls in line with her plan.
What’s her plan? Chad has to sneak into Osbourne’s house and copy whatever is on the man’s computer and they then can give it to the Russians. Easy-peasy. Well, actually, not so much, and when Chad goes undercover to do the deed, it’s a very funny little moment.
WHY IT MATTERS: Chad is a health nut, a perpetually up-beat gym rat who exercises constantly, eats nothing but natural foods, and pipes in dance music to his earbuds, which seem stuck in his head.
Linda convinces him to put on a suit when he goes to Cox’s neighborhood, simply to blend in with the locals. It’s not a thing that Chad wears well. Either way, he drives up to the Cox house and parks across the street under a few shaded trees and waits for things to be clear. In the front seat, he sits with his earbuds on (to music we never are able to hear) and sort of dances in place, swinging his arms about as he sips on a jumbo-sized health drink through a straw.
It’s just then when Cox’s wife pulls up, but out of the car comes a stranger (we recognize as Harry), the two obviously heading inside for what appears to Chad as a tryst (he’s already met Osbourne), though we know it’s something altogether weirder. Chad also notices a car a few lengths ahead with a man in the driver’s seat who appears to be waiting like he is. What’s going on?
I love what Pitt does with these few minutes, the light never really coming on per se that should signal to him that he’s about to step into some very heavy doo-doo. Watch how he uses his very expressive face to sort of absorb only bits of what he’s seeing while most of it bounces off, leaving him painfully unaware of the reality he’s got himself dug into.
That’s the magic of this moment, where we see what he doesn’t, not only because we know most of what is going on, but because even at its most superficial, everything about the house and surroundings is off. The Coen’s are masters at this kind of storytelling, the scene entirely without dialogue and only minimal music, allowing Chad to sit in judgement of the action unfolding and then misunderstand what it really means. Diluted with ego and gumption, not to mention his hyperbolic need to please Linda, Chad is acutely unaware that he’s about to commit a very dangerous crime, firmly believing that he’s the smart one in this plan. He’s not.
This could have been a very short moment, where the Coen’s might have simply had Chad pull up and get into the house, boom, done and done. Yet instead, what they do is carefully, purposefully draw it out where he sits in his car waiting. This gives us more opportunity to realize just how out of touch Chad really is, his inability to see that everything in his line of sight spells danger. Obviously, he can’t spell. It’s almost frustrating as Chad seems to almost ‘get it’ before the music in his ears has him swinging his arms again. There’s this fantastic bit of hesitation in him that Pitt works into his face and upper body that really earns the moment some laughs.
I won’t spoil what happens next, but suffice to say – this being a Coen Brothers’ movie – you ain’t gonna be ready for it. Either way, Burn Before Reading is a mostly very entertaining caper with an energetic cast and a few solid twists, all let down a bit by a dull and lifeless ending. Still, when a couple of can-do gym trainers think they’ve got the perfect plan and one drives to the home a CIA agent, Burn After Reading hits a high note, making it the film’s most surreal scene. It’s a great movie moment.