BURN AFTER READING (R) ***1/2

 

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. 97 minutes.

Starring George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons and Brad Pitt. Released by Focus Features.

 

Burn After Reading is a comedy about Intelligence in an age of stupidity. It’s not a Coen Brothers masterpiece in the realm of No Country for Old Men or Fargo, but has more in common with the duo’s loony comedies like The Big Lebowski or Raising Arizona than it does with their lighter fare, namely The Ladykillers or Intolerable Cruelty. In other words, it’s a gas. “This is one clusterfuck,” says a CIA heavy played by J.K. Simmons, who gets to deliver the film’s hilarious coda, of Burn’s series of conundrums that leave several dead, another comatose, one character fleeing the country and another gets a hold of some loot. As the story circles around and around on itself, the CIA can’t seem to put all the pieces together to figure out what has transpired. In fact, neither do we, but no matter. This is one of the year’s few truly funny movies. And, much like Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, the film’s cast delivers performances, not shticks like so many actors in American comedies.

 

The film opens with a foul-mouthed, slightly pretentious CIA agent named Osborne Cox (a delirious John Malkovich) getting demoted by his superiors, who accuse him of having a drinking problem. His retort to a colleague’s religion is the first of many gut laughs in the picture. Cox’s life is falling apart before his eyes. He quits the agency and attempts to remain civil with his wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), an ice queen who is having an affair with federal marshal Harry Pfarrer (a goofily charming George Clooney). So Cox decides to write a memoir, which he pronounces mem-wah in his best French. That is, until Katie puts all his mem-wah’s material on a disk that somehow ends up on the floor of a workout center called Hardbodies. Enter a new cast of characters: Linda Litzke (a sympathetic and hilarious Frances McDormand), a middle aged woman who is desperate for love and liposuction; her pining boss, Ted (Richard Jenkins, exuding classy resignation as always; and Linda’s dopey workout instructor, Chad (Brad Pitt, in fine comedic form).

 

You can see where this is going. Chad calls Cox in the middle of the night, referring to himself as a good Samaritan and attempting to give the disk back. Money is mentioned and Cox sees ulterior motives. A meeting place is decided upon. Characters criss cross. Harry and Linda end up on a date, but it’s not because of generic plot recycling. Harry is a charmer, a well-meaning ladykiller. He treats his myriad of women with a level of respect, despite the fact that he takes a jog after sex. He actually loves his wife. And, for a comedy as preposterously funny as this one, Linda’s character is truly sympathetic. The characters are true Coen characters- dumb and likable, desperate and out of control. But this is by no means a dumb movie. It may not have the dramatic weight of Barton Fink or be steeped in symbolism as O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but is also not as light as a feather as some of their more recent screwball comedies.

 

  Burn After Reading is, in fact, perfect for our current age of idiocy, poking fun at gym culture, bad Intelligence, a lack of intelligence, cosmetic operations and bungled government. “Report back to me when it all makes sense,” Simmons tells an underling toward the film’s ending. He, like the characters in this movie and like the people of this nation and even the people of this world, are trying to make sense of our age of incompetence. I think it’s appropriate that one of the film’s characters is actually rewarded for their bungling at the film’s end. The Coen Brothers make brilliant movies and even their second and third tier films display a certain competency that is often not present in many other filmmakers’ best work. Their films play dumb in the smartest of ways.