Burn After Reading: Sigh After Watching review

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The Coen's Brothers earlier triumph, No Country For Old Men never made it to Indian cinema halls. So it's quite surprising to see this considerably lesser effort here, already. Maybe it's the presence of ‘˜saleable' stars like George Clooney and Brad Pitt that's doing the trick.

Far removed from the heavy premise of No Country, Burn After Reading is a comedy that gets over in a rapid 90-minute run. It does not have too many jokes in its hat; much of the humour is expected to be provided by the intentionally complex story that keeps getting more complicated as it goes along. In fact after a point, things get so out of hand that characters have to be bumped off to ensure a smooth narrative. The film has a roster of four to five A-list stars to keep you sufficiently interested if not involved.

Try to stay with me as I narrate the story. It's only the tip of the iceberg but it will do. John Malkovich is a CIA analyst who is terminated from employment. He starts writing a memoir about his days at the CIA. Now hold this end, we shall come back to it soon. His wife Tilda Swinton, is having an affair with George Clooney. Clooney, himself is a married man whose wife is a writer of children's books. Their marriage may or may not be in trouble depending on how much the wife knows about Clooney's philandering. Amongst his other conquests is Frances McDormand who works at a gym. She is desperately in need of two things, a steady mate and money for multiple cosmetic surgeries. One day a CD is found at the gym that contains what looks like top secret "CIA shit". It actually is the end you have been holding up for so long, that is the draft of the memoir Malkovich is writing. McDormand along with trainer Brad Pitt plans to extort some money from Malkovich in exchange for the CD.

As you can see it all goes round in circles until all combinations and possibilities to further the story have been exhausted. At some point of time, the CIA gets involved. They smell a rat and gather information on the proceedings but can't seem to make sense out of it. The scenes where the data collected is reported to the CIA boss (J K Simmons) are the funniest. In all seriousness, they discuss what's going on, trying to find a deep conspiracy when there exists none. As Simmons says it one scene, "Jesus, what a clusterf**k".

Perhaps sensing the paucity of real humour, all characters have been made quirky by the Coens. It's almost as if the actors were asked to go as over the top as they can. But not all of them are good at it. Only Malkovich and Swinton impress. Malkovich is wonderful as he vents his anger at almost everyone and anyone and in every scene he is in. Swinton plays the super-bitch effortlessly.

Clooney's stock expression in all his films is this slight twitch of the lips. Here it's not just the lips but his entire face that twitches from time to time. McDormand is good in parts, but unfortunately shares most of her scenes with Brad Pitt who is plain annoying. As the gum-chewing, over-gesticulating, overtly cool instructor he tries hard to play the one out-and-out comedy part. Too hard for his own good.

Burn might have received a slightly better rating if it weren't a Coen Brothers film. But they themselves have set a benchmark which they fail to achieve this time round. A black comedy A Serious Man is already in post-production. Let's wait for that one instead.

[rating:2.5]