Review: Coen fans will enjoy ‘Burn After Reading’

Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen

Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, J.K. Simmons, Elizabeth Marvel

Rated: R

There’s really no such thing as a typical Coen brothers film. They’ve done offbeat comedy (“Raising Arizona”), a period-piece gangster film (“Miller’s Crossing”), films with lots of music (“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) and last year won a best picture Oscar for their take on the Cormac McCarthy novel “No Country for Old Men.”

Some of their work has spawned cult followings. There are a number of “Lebowski Fests” around the country every year celebrating all things relating to “The Dude,” the lead character in “The Big Lebowski.” And, ya know, you betcha, “Fargo” is a film I will watch anytime it’s on TV.

The brothers also broke convention by convincing the Directors Guild of America to allow them to be credited as co-directors on their films, something that rarely happens in Hollywood. Interviews with actors who have worked with the pair reveal that Joel and Ethan really do function as one unit.

Their latest film, “Burn After Reading,” is more of the same from the team. Which is to say, it’s very different from anything they’ve done before. There are a few giveaways, though. The Coens’ dialogue, for those familiar with their body of work, is usually identifiable and is so here; and their films are often filled with quirky, if all too human, characters. Many of those, too, are in “Burn After Reading.”

It’s difficult to review or discuss in depth this film because many scenes and plot lines rely heavily on the element of surprise. The ads seen on TV give the basic premise, but upon viewing, I was taken aback a few times by sudden turns of events and one very major plot point.

The characters intertwine so much it’s hard to know where to start, but here goes: Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is a CIA analyst who has just been fired for his excessive drinking. He’s in denial. He’s married to Katie (Tilda Swinton), who is having an affair with an agent from the state department, Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). Harry also trolls Internet dating services, and it seems he will bed any woman with a pulse. At one online site, he meets Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), a fitness center instructor who desperately wants her health insurance to pay for no less than five plastic surgeries. “I’ve gotten about as far as this body can take me,” Linda declares.

Linda’s friend and co-worker is the ebullient Chad – Brad Pitt in a great comedic role. A janitor finds a CD (“It was lying on the floor,” he says repeatedly) in the women’s locker room and gives it to Chad. He assumes it’s a music-mix disc and pops it in his computer.

Instead of music, however, the CD is filled with information that appears to have been put together by one Osborne Cox, the bibulous, disgruntled, smarter-than-everybody-else, newly fired CIA agent. The audience knows these traits and Osborne’s unemployment status, but Chad just knows his name and the agency for which he works.

Goofball that he is, Chad thinks maybe this Osborne Cox (Chad always says the full name and it’s funny, in a Coen brothers’ way) will give him a reward for being a “good Samaritan.”

Linda has bigger plans. She figures Agent Cox and the CIA will pay big money for getting this information back. So she and Chad – a team not unlike Rupert Pupkin and Masha in “The King of Comedy” – begin a plan of blackmail. The trail takes them from Cox to the Russian embassy, and somewhere along the way, the CIA finds out something is going on. J.K. Simmons, billed simply as “CIA Superior,” delivers some of the film’s best Coen-esque lines.

There’s so much more that happens, and the joy of this film lies in watching it unfold. It’s not so much a “spy” satire as it is a study of (stupid) human behavior. The bêtises come often and hilariously in “Burn After Reading,” and fans of the Coen style of humor will feel right at home with the material.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.