Dan's Papers - September 12, 2008

Hey, Coen brothers fans - remember 2007's intense, charging No Country For Old Men? Can you gleefully recall the terror of the chase, the complexity of the layered story, involving the personal plans of each supporting player? Well, forget it, because now Ethan and Joel are back to their old shenanigans, which isn't a bad thing at all.

No Country was such a rich movie, and after it won the Best Picture Oscar, film fans seemed positively galvanized in seeing their next work, Burn After Reading, yet became confused during trailers and previews for it. In reality, Country was an anomaly - Burn is really a better representation of what it is the Coen duo does.

For a better idea of what this movie is like, think The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Intolerable Cruelty or O Brother Where Art Thou - just to name a few - these are the type of smart and silly movies that truly define what the writer/producer/director team really pump out. Their films are always surreal-feeling, yet mostly based in reality, and always featuring A-list actors playing people who are experts at something, yet are unable to either succeed or come off as competent. That signature style has created a legion of fans, but also can leave the casual movie-goer feeling a little confused at times. So if you're not a Coen aficionado, come in expecting nothing and give Burn a chance... it's certainly odd, but brainy and loads of fun.

It begins with the chagrin of one Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), a CIA analyst who finds himself suddenly sacked by his "intelligence" agency superiors. However, the disparaged snoop doesn't take it lying down, deciding to write a memoir based on his covert knowledge and experiences. Needless to say, his wife, Katie (played by Tilda Swinton, fresh off her Michael Clayton Oscar), is irked, and quickly plans to divorce Osbourne for her man-on-the-side and serial lothario, a federal marshal named Harry Pfarrer (who's inhabited here by George Clooney, who weirdly starred as Swinton's adversary in Clayton). Unfortunately for the lady Cox, Harry is married, too - all the while meeting even more women via dating web sites.

One of those ladies is Linda Litzke (real-life wife of Joel Coen and Oscar winner for the Coen film Fargo), a fitness center employee whose low self-esteem plays havoc with her love life and leaves her obsessing over her impending swath of cosmetic surgeries - of which her insurance won't cover. It's this financial blow that leads her to join forces with gym-rat Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) when the pair stumbles across a computer disc that contains some apparently classified government information - a disc that just happens to belong to...Osbourne Cox (remember him?) The blackmail game is now on, changing the movie's settings from "zippy" to "near-manic."

There's definitely a story here, and it follows the usual Coen code with every character being skilled and imbued with the semblance of intelligence, yet ending up bumbling at some juncture, if not all the time. And with the blackmail scheme in play, the co-writers/ directors once again rely on their constant theme of illicit activity in the name of a personal windfall - like the kidnapped baby in Raising Arizona, the jailbreak for treasure and love in O Brother Where Art Thou, even the cash in No Country - this time it's easily-entered criminal behavior in the name of vanity. Rarely has any director or director team been able to create so many variations on what is really one drive. So is this film a trip to the well one time too many? No sir - apparently the Coens can still derive sweet sap from this evergreen.

As for the cast, Clooney, who took it on his leading-man chin in Intolerable Cruelty and absorbed endless indignities in the amazing O Brother courtesy of Ethan and Joel, is back once again, and this time is no different, sexy yet spacey, and utterly enjoyable. Pitt, meanwhile, ends up channeling the frantic gestures of his Academy Award-nominated turn in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, but here he employs them in the guise of a more clean-cut nut, whose brain seems to be drowning in his own sweat - an excellent reminder that while Brad may be ultimately famous for his abs, mug and knock-out wife, he happens to be great at comedy.

In fact, everybody in this movie is at least pretty good, and that also includes those in bit parts, especially Coen vet J.K. Simmons (who excels under quirky directors like the Coens and as "J. Jonah Jameson" in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy), appearing here as a ranking CIA honcho. You've got to love how the Central Intelligence Agency is so often portrayed as cold and evil, yet the brother team gets behind the camera and manages to turn the organization into a contingent of high-hoping dopes. It's a unique talent they employ; they can take what has the earmarks of what seems to be the property of intellectuality and then inject it with a heavy gravy of slapstick, while keeping it highbrow through stellar camerawork, clever writing plus the ability of their always-talented players to firmly grasp the nuances of the Coens' vision.

The only question left is where this flick will land in the pantheon of the brothers Coen: from panned flop, yet guilty pleasure, The Ladykillers, to cult classics Hudsucker Proxy and The Big Lebowski to serious critic darling No Country - best guess is it ends up high-middle in their catalogue. However, time will tell, as their movies shine in the theatre, but then hold up even better during DVD rentals and endless cable TV showings. So, while you may simply enjoy this at the megaplex - and you should - it could end up on your personal top 10 after seeing it 20 more times.

Ian Stark is a frequent TV and radio commentator on the film industry, and consults with private organizations on their collections. He is widely published on film and other arts/culture topics.