#28

Burn After Reading



Director: Ethan and Joel Coen



Cast: Geroge Clooney ("Harry Pfarrer"), Francis McDormand ("Linda Litzke"), John Malkovich ("Osbourne Cox"), Tilda Swinton ("Katie Cox"), Brad Pitt ("Chad Feldheimer")

Review: Osbourne Cox, a CIA analyst, gets fired because he has a drinking problem. His wife, Katie, is secretly cheating on him with Harry Pfarrer, a guy he hates. Mrs. cox has been unhappy in her marriage for a long time and so she goes to a divorce lawyer who tells her to find out how much money her husband has, because he doesn't want to go into divorce unprepared. Katie sends most of her husband's files to her lawyer's secretary who looses the disk at Hardbodies, her gym. That's were Linda Litzke and Chad Feldheimer find the disk and want to blackmail Osbourne Cox. His reaction is a little different than they expected because instead of being afraid of waht might happen if Linda and Chad sell the disk, he yells and screams and tells them to go fuck themselves. He nevertheless agress to meet with them only to scream at Chad again and to hit him in the face. Linda then wants to sell the files to the Russians, but they don't seem to be interested in them. When Chad goes to Osbourne's house to steal some more files he is surprised by Harry who came to the house to take a shower. Unfortunately for Chad Harry has a gun...

"Burn After Reading" is a Coen classic. It's funny in a very weird way, extremely clever and with some amazing plot twists and it has a spectacular cast. Pitt's portrayal of Chad, a slightly metrosexual and out-of -his-mind crazy fitness coach is both hilarious and outstanding.
All the other cast members do a terrific job as well and there is nothing to critize about the acting.
Unfortunately my expectations were slightly different. I don't really know what I hoped for, but I certainly was disapointed when I left the cinema. The story is funny and entertaining and there are no flaws in it whatsoever. I did laugh a lot and I also enjoyed the dialogue.
But it still felt like there was something missing. I had the same feeling when I watched "Oh Brother, where art thou?". I didn't really like it for no apparent reason.
I'm sorry that I cannot put my dislikes into words.

7.8 out of 10 weird espionage movies