Burn After Reading (2008)

Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen | 96 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Logan Kulick, Lenny Venito, JK Simmons, Olek Krupa, Michal Countryman, Kevin Sussman, JR Horne, Hamilton Clancy, Armand Schultz, David Rasche

‘Burn After Reading’ starts like so many other CIA films with zooming in from far above the earth to deep into the CIA headquarters in Langley with accompanying evocative sounds and music. The images after that are also in that style. A camera angle low to the ground builds up the tension as you closely follow a pair of shiny polished shoes under black trousers through the long corridors. But this is a film by the Coen brothers, so when you see a boss sitting behind a desk and two men who are almost nonchalantly in the same room, you know that despite the outward appearance this cannot be the tried and true recipe.

Yet the joke is stretched even further by having Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) ask if that one man is not from such and such a department…. again suggesting that we are witnessing a major revelation about the threat to world peace or something. But Cox is simply held accountable for his binge drinking and the resulting measures. The whole thing is too witty for words. The rest of ‘Burn After Reading’ is also in the same style with an overly complicated plot and all kinds of sidesteps and events that should make the story exciting, while the brothers chuckle one joke after another.

Leaving aside the idiotic and very witty plot, the acting is to die for. Brad Pitt is irresistible as the somewhat naive fitness instructor Chad Feldheimer. Rarely has superficiality been so beautifully depicted: every gesture, every glance is exactly as it should be. When he and his colleague Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) phone Osbourne Cox to tell him that they have a diskette containing sensitive information from Cox and that they want money for it, Chad asks in a kind of spy voice. several times very emphatically whether he really has Osbourne Cox on the phone. As a little naughty boy, he can hardly believe his luck to experience something so exciting. And when Cox makes a mistake about the brand of his bike when they meet, he is double-crossed with laughter until he realizes that he is playing in a tense spy drama and immediately puts his face and glance back on spy mode: genius.

The other roles are also fantastic, with George Clooney’s not going unmentioned. His character is weak, opportunistic and good for nothing. But the way in which the paranoia slowly takes hold of him is perfectly portrayed under a layer of jokes and jests. The machine that he assembles in his hobby room is worth a separate study and it is initially left nicely in the middle of what we will see. Another example of how cleverly people play with the expectations you have as a viewer of these kinds of films.

‘Burn After Reading’ is very funny, but not just hilarious, there is just too much bitterness and violence in it. But it is precisely this beautiful mix that ensures that the film gets under your skin. The clumsiness with which the CIA is run here is so believable that it creeps up on you that this nonchalance may be closer to reality than all those bombastic, heroic productions where everyone is on alert twenty-four hours a day, sacrificing themselves without any problem or reservation for the national interest. And that is very well done.