150 Word Review: 'Burn After Reading' (2008)
Two lifts, one for each face
Burn After Reading is writer-director team Joel and Ethan Coen’s bleakest satire—a hilariously cynical peek at dimwitted Deep State nobodies in Washington, D.C.
What a cast: Frances McDormand is a ditzy suburban sociopath, and John Malkovich is pure drunken rage as a mediocre CIA analyst whose wife, played by Tilda Swinton, is cuckolding him. George Clooney and Brad Pitt are in peak form as two dipshits: an aging philanderer and a trainer with no brains.
In 2008, the movie was instantly forgotten, crammed between two Coen Brothers' masterpieces: the Cormac McCarthy adaptation No Country for Old Men and their semi-autobiographical morality tale, A Serious Man.
Burn After Reading is also the Coens at their most political, skewering America's post-9/11 war machine without directly criticizing any particular party. They call a pox on both houses, mocking the self-important wonks who walk the halls of power and the greedy citizens they serve.
Random Rankings
Top 5 Coen Brothers Movies
5. 'A Serious Man' (2009)
4. 'Miller's Crossing' (1990)
3. 'No Country For Old Men' (2007)
2. 'Fargo' (1996)
1. 'Raising Arizona' (1987)
I recently rewatched too as it's going off Netflix. It's so funny. And the Workout World-type gym in the 00s was so relatable. Brad Pitt won me with that performance (more than any other including "A River Runs Through It")
I sometimes have to pause it for a while during the dildo machine scene. I've never seen anything so nihilistic and sex-negative.