Burn After Reading (2008)

What do CIA signal interception, internet dating and the fitness culture have in common, not much you would say, not in the minds in the Coens they do, and the result is comedy called "Burn After Reading".

Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is a CIA analyst in the Balkans Siging devision, he is married to a cutthroat bitch (Tilda Swinton) and lives in the velvet carpeted boring life of a princeton graduate in Washington DC, but his ejection from his job into a marginal position leaves him frustrated, and to make things worse Mrs Cox is not exactly a model wife, so out of frustration, he decides to write a memoir about his years in service, and to make things worse again, this memoirs fall accidently in the hands of Chad (Brad Pitt), and Lynda (Frances McDormand) fitness coaches at "hardbodies" a successful gym run by (Robert Jenkins), who see in this an oppurtunity to make some money.

Lynda who is into internet dating and "re-inventing herself" ends up meeting Harry Pfaffer (George Clooney), a treasury executive and who is inclined to filandering and buliding weird artifacts, and who is also a friends of the Cox's especially Mrs Cox.

This intricate web of characters relationships is what connects a rather impressive set of subplots, but hey these are the coens, and when it comes to multiplex plot and gourmet dialogue, they never disappoint, but what is essentialy a charcter movie populated with idiots in the big tradition of the much excellent "The Big lebowski" offers opportunitys of acting departure for it's stars, Brad Pitt is such a cartoon of himself in the perfect coenesque tradtion, miles away from the cool clever Rusty Rean from the "Ocean's Trilogy", Clooney continues his hilarious job for the coens, which he started with "O'brother", and continued with "Intolerable cruelty" as a larger then life buffoon.

And Frances McDormand is so touching as a fourtiesh woman trying to re-invent hersrlf, and getting acciedently in the world of espionnage for that, and Tilda Swinton plays her exact opposite, incredibly stuck-up and cold, and in this myriad of characters, the award goes to super John Malkovich, in the "Being John Malkovich" tradition, overworked, and over the edge, reminding everyone that when it goes wrong, it goes wrong all the way, all this set on a rythm of a beautiful paraniod soundtrack by Carter Burwell.

The Washinton DC politics , the fitness culture, the jogging buffs, the CIA bigshots mergey in this unlikely but very tasty stock, it is the Coens laughing at themselves and at everybody, who take themselves and their little stories too seriously, because if the DC people are like that, who can blame Canada.

The movie's weakness is perhaps the ending, which comes at a surprising moment, in a surprising way, it makes you wonder why, but i guess this whole movie is a "feel good movie" after the much darker "No Country For Old Men", and a near miss is also a near hit, but you will laugh your guts off when you see the artifact harry builds, it's a pure coen-clooney moment you can't affoard to miss, in the days of "40 years old virgin" type of gross comedy.