Pitt, Clooney, Malkovich, Simmons... heck, even the Coens are BURNing!

School starts next week so I suppose I still have one more movie left in me to finally put the summer movie season of 2008 to rest. It was a pretty good summer... global warming is still fake, the particle accelerator didn't generate a deadly black hole, THE DARK KNIGHT was fucking amazing, and most importantly, the Republican vice presidential candidate ends up being a total babe. Yowza! With that said, let's move on, shall we?

BURN AFTER READING (2008)

With every new Coen Brothers release comes a flurry of indie hype and pretentious buzz - it's simply unavoidable. Riding the tails of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, BURN AFTER READING has been oft regarded as a "victory lap" of sorts for the Coens, which naturally has sent the self-righteous Coen fans into a fury of outrageous proportion, marked by a series of Starbucks sit-ins and the burning of countless hybrid vehicles. Shame, because under all of that so-called disastrous underachieving and laziness lies a highly entertaining witty and dark ensemble comedy.

BURN AFTER READING is a quick one, that's for sure, weighing in at a svelt 96 minutes, but it's an hour-and-a-half of buffoonery, idiocity, and plundering that only the Coens could pull off. The film suffers from a noticeably slow exposition (all of which commences with an opening scene that establishes Osborne Cox's (John Malkovich) affinity for the word 'fuck'). BURN never really gets its legs until Chad (Brad Pitt), a more than dim-witted gym trainer, comes into the picture, and from there, the film's pace really takes off with a series of baffling (or should I say shocking?) deaths and silly events that come to characterize the goofy nature of the entire flick.

Without the help of some incredulous casting, BURN AFTER READING likely would not succeed as billed. In fact some of the film's stars come out of the woodwork to deliver delightfully funny and out-of-pigeon-hole performances. Clooney is brilliant; a retired bodyguard and sort of paranoid playboy of sorts whose aspirations of inventorship reach the pinnacle of potty humor, Malkovich achieves drollery in his own angst and holier-than-thou attitude, and even J.K. Simmons emerges as a star, making the absolute most of his ten minutes of screen time. Frances McDormand though is really the only underwhelming performer as she essentially plays the same character from FARGO sans uniform and badge. But in the end it's Brad Pitt who takes top marks with an utterly hilarious turn as a character that is nothing more than a complete and total idiot. How many filmmakers can take a character that has no depth, development, or arc and make them wholly enjoyable (and Will Ferrell in every single muck of a film he's in doesn't count by the way)?

BURN AFTER READING is far from an example of talented filmmakers gone lazy. In fact, if this picture is uninspired filmmaking, the rest of the stuff coming out of Hollywood must be created by the comatose (eh, that might not be too far from the truth actually). It's clever, funny, and a fun watch. It might not be the life-changing drama that NO COUNTRY was, but it's a welcome change-of-pace that, if nothing else, displays the Coen's versatility in mixing up genre. If you want a SUPERBAD like comedy, this one is not for you, but if you want something that's a little more dark and cruelly laughable, the latest Coen venture will certainly satisfy your appetites. Oscar winner this one isn't, but an enjoyable, worth-your-time flick it most certainly is.