by Jenny Jones
The Coen Brothers have elicited much controversy and criticism in the past for such films as “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” “The Ladykillers” (and two of my favourites) “The Big Lebowski” and “Fargo”. If we have learned anything from these films it is 1. That you have to pay close attention to the story’s twists and turns and 2. Some poor sap is going to get it…bad! “Burn After Reading” definitely delivers on both. What is even more brilliant about this story line, if you pay attention like I said, is that nothing really happens in the grand scheme of things and yet an entire movie is made about that nothing. Let me explain…
The Coen brothers first introduce us to Osbourne Cox (played by John Malkovitch) and his wife Katie (played by Tilda Swinton). Osbourne is fired from his job as a CIA agent and his wife threatens to divorce him if he does not find an alternate source of income, so Osbourne begins to record his personal memoirs in the hopes of publishing a book. Now enter the characters of Chad Feldheimer and Linda Litzke (played by Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand); two employees at a Georgetown fitness centre called “Hardbodies”. Chad is a happy go lucky boob and Linda is a middle aged single woman desperate for a number of plastic surgeries to help improve her social life. After working out at the local gym, Osbourne accidentally drops the disc containing his private notes for his book and it is recovered by Chad and Linda who decide to blackmail Osbourne for a cash reward. When the ex-CIA agent refuses to play ball the two ignorant gym workers decide to take their find to the Russians and try to get money from them. However when the Russians won’t pay for the nonsense drivel on the disc either, Linda sends Chad into Osbourne’s home to dig up more dirt on him.
Meanwhile there is a second story line unfolding involving Osbourne’s wife Katie, who is secretly cheating with a womanizing State Department marshal named Harry Pfarrer (played by George Clooney), who is also sharing a bed from time to time with Linda, whom he met through an internet dating service.
To complicate things even further, the head of the CIA (played by J. K. Simmons) has been informed of the situation with Osbourne, his wife, the disc, the cheating spouses and is desperate to keep the CIA’s reputation clean in the whole mess.
With the termination of the final climactic scene at Osbourne’s home, Chad is dead, Harry is arrested trying to flee to Venezuela, Osbourne is shot and unlikely to recover from his wounds after killing the owner of “Hardbodies” who he found snooping in his basement and the infamous disc is recovered from Linda by the CIA who agree to pay for her surgeries in exchange for the safe return of the disc and her sworn statement not to speak of any of this to anyone ever again. The CIA figures they have dodged a bullet, or have they? What really just happened? Were they ever in any danger of being smeared in the first place? How did three people end up dead or dying? Watch it again to see what you missed the first time around and have yourself some good laughs!
7.5 / 10