Let me get this out of the way right now: I wasn’t a huge fan of “No Country For Old Men,” let alone other Coen Brothers classics like “Fargo“… “Burn After Reading” is their recent effort, a movie that Brooke (of course) insisted on seeing (but since the Moolah serves beer and lets you sit in leather couches, I wasn’t going to argue much…) and contains many of the best actors of our time, including Clooney, Pitt, McDormand, and Malkovich.
The basic idea of the movie is that Malkovich works for the CIA, gets canned, and decides to write his memoir. The CD containing his draft(s) gets lost at a local workout studio, the workers (McDormand and Pitt) discover it and try to make some money by blackmailing Malkovich. All this time, Clooney and Malkovich’s wife are having an affair, but since Clooney is (apparently) addicted to sex, he also gets with McDormand…tying all these parties together… Get it?
Nope…you probably don’t…and this is typical of a Coen Bros. movie… Seriously…what the heck…
Regardless, as compared with “No Country,” this movie was actually pretty funny…and while it didn’t make much sense, the plot did actually come “full-circle” and make sense…there was a beginning, middle and end…and the end made some kind of (twisted) sense.
I can’t say this movie was the best I’ve seen all summer (yes…it’s still summer until Sept. 22nd), but it wasn’t bad, either. And seeing it with a beer in your hand is never a bad thing.