Last night after an evening in the spa, Chris and I decided to watch a movie. So after going through all 20,000 of our selections on in-demand (okay, it was like 100, but still), we settled on "Burn After Reading." This is a movie that Chris and I have wanted to watch for quite some time. The stellar cast of George Clooney (Oscar winner), Frances McDormand (Oscar winner), John Malkovich (Oscar nominated), Tilda Swinton (Oscar winner) and Brad Pitt (Oscar nominated) seemed like a sure thing. The directing/producing/writing team of Joel and Ethan Coen have Oscar wins and nominations up to their eyeballs for awesome films such as "Fargo", "No Country For Old Men" and "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?"
As you can see, after reviewing such credentials and looking at the "freshness" of the movie on rottentomatoes.com (77% for those who are wondering), we were expecting a witty dark comedy that would be smart, interesting, and entertaining for the entire 96 minutes. However, what we received was a crass, idiotic plot that made absolutely no sense.
**Spoilers Below**
Take George Clooney for example. His character plays a man who spends the entire movie sleeping with 4 different woman and has a mental breakdown when his wife splits with him. This, mind you, is after he had already moved in with Tilda Swinton's character after she blindsided her husband with a divorce (for not liking him or something stupid - she was a nag, if I ever end up like that, kill me). Back to George Clooney's character. He makes this chair.... Google "Burn After Reading Chair" and it will pop up if you are curious. It is vulgar and out of nowhere. This character had the biggest flaws to me. He also kills an intruder (Brad Pitt) and then dumps the body... even though he knows he is being followed (and, oh yeah, you can defend yourself against an intruder).
Lets get to John Malkovich. He is a brilliant actor. He is fun to watch. In this entire movie he had one line. It was a one word line: F**K. Seriously, I love the F-word. But an hour and a half... blah. His wife in the film, Tilda Swinton, the only thing I can say about her is what a nag!!!! Arggghhh!!
The Gym employees, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand. They are the plot of the story. Their janitor Manolo finds this cd and they blackmail John Malkovich to get money. Brad wants money because he is supposed to and Frances wants the money for her "surgeries" which include a face lift, butt lift, breast augmentation and tummy tuck. Oh, and she is sleeping with George Clooney too, because she is insecure and he apparently needs to sleep with every female in the movie. She tries to sell the info to the Russians and this embezzlement ends up getting two people killed because they are stupid of course. One, that was mentioned above, and another with an hatchet of some sort. Because no black comedies would be complete without the hatchet. I think the Coen brothers are trying to tell us that we, the masses, are just dumb enough to do this.
At the end of the movie you may ask what happened to all of these people? Nothing really. The CIA sent George Clooney to Venezuela (because there is no extradition there). The Gym employee got her surgeries, Tilda Swinton never came back to the screen and Brad Pitt and John Malkovich died, but no one was held accountable because that would be too much paperwork. Is this where I am supposed to laugh?
After this terribly stupid movie we decided to watch "Horton Hears a Who." This movie was funny, had a message and had several pop-culture references that made me laugh out loud (there seriously was an Emo Who that would not speak). If you have an hour and a half, I recommend this movie.
I have definitely learned my lesson on what makes a great movie!
