Burn After Reading – A Big Disappointment!

My Rating – 6/10

I was hoping for an afternoon of laughter, but had only a chuckle or two throughout the whole movie, which is no more more than a mish-mash of many other movies and roles.  It is what you get when you take the tone of “Raising Arizona” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou” and mix them with the violence of “Blood Simple” and “No Country for Old Men.”  Tilda Swinton plays a variation of her role from “Michael Clayton.”  George Clooney plays a variation of his character from “O Brother.”  Brad Pitt plays a variation of his role from “Twelve Monkeys.”  And John Malkovich plays yet another variation on his obnoxious self (see every movie he has ever made save “Places from the Heart”).

To say I was disappointed in the movie is to put it mildly, and I almost always love the Coens work.  For me the only truly funny scenes in the film were those featuring J. K. Simmons as a CIA superior officer, and those were too few and too far between.

***** Spoiler Alert*****

Of course, I didn’t really mind it all when Brad Pitt met his maker with a bullet to the head.  That was worth watching. ; )