Burn After Reading (2008)

Burn After Reading has two things you'd expect from a Coen brothers movie: dark humor and Frances McDormand. The fault lies in the marketing as to how laugh out loud funny this movie is. The trailers, the commercials - both portray it as the most uproariously funny thing you'd see in 2008. It is not. What we're looking at is dark - very dark.

Two gym employees, Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt), find the memoirs of a recently laid off fed agent (John Malkovich) on a cd in the locker room. They mistake this for top secret information and set to sell it back to its owner. The disc actually belonged to the agent's wife (Tilda Swinton), who was trying to find info about him for their upcoming divorce.

What follows is generally people acting horribly to each other and lots of patented Malkovich yelling. When physical violence erupts it is intense - also a Coen trademark. Richard Jenkins steals a bit of the limelight as Linda and Chad's powerless boss Ted while J. K. Simmons brings a little straight-laced humor in his brief scenes as an agency superior. And if anyone is actually goofy funny, it's Brad Pitt who brings a much needed lightness to the story. Still, overall not much of a comedy.

Rating: 3/5
Recommended for: Adults who'd watch anything that has the Coen brothers' name on it.