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With Burn After Reading, the Coen Brothers have crafted another clever comedy/thriller with an outlandish plot and memorable characters. Read critic reviews
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Burn After Reading videos
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - Baby Crow's Feet
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - A League of Morons
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - Raw Intelligence
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - Cocktails and Goat Cheese
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - Appearances Can Be Deceptive
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - Tuchman Marsh
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - Caught and Shot
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - Osbourne Is Out
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - I Got His Number
Burn After Reading: Official Clip - Harry and Linda's Blind Date
Burn After Reading Photos
Movie Info
When a disc containing memoirs of a former CIA analyst (John Malkovich) falls into the hands of Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), the two gym employees see a chance to make enough money for her to have life-changing cosmetic surgery. Predictably, events whirl out of control for the duo doofuses and those in their orbit.
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Rating: R (Some Sexual Content|Pervasive Language|Violence)
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Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery & thriller
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Original Language: English
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Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
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Producer: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
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Writer: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
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Release Date (Theaters): wide
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Box Office (Gross USA): $60.3M
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Runtime:
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Distributor: Focus Features
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Production Co: Working Title Films
Cast & Crew
News & Interviews for Burn After Reading
Critic Reviews for Burn After Reading
Audience Reviews for Burn After Reading
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"What a clusterf***." The Coen brothers' black comedy Burn After Reading is a complete mess that doesn't deliver that many laughs. When two gym trainers find a computer disc containing the memoir of a CIA analyst they attempt to blackmail him; meanwhile a philandering US marshal grows increasingly paranoid that he's being spied on by someone. Starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich and Brad Pitt, the film has an impressive cast that gives fairly good performances. The problem is, most of the characters are unlikable assholes. And the plot goes nowhere, which would be alright if it was a fun ride or had some clever twist of irony...but it doesn't. Still, the satiric wit of the Coen brothers makes for a few fun comedic moments. Burn After Reading is entertaining at times but doesn't really amount to much.
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This film is just fun and funny. A Coen Bros classic that can't be missed. The characters are expertly drawn and the alluring, winding plot is enjoyable. Great performances from the entire cast. Possibly the least dark Coens' movie.
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Burn After Reading is a typical Coen brothers' lark that features A-list actors strutting their stuff as a group of idiotic characters. It's a frequently funny film, but offers nothing on a deeper more thematic level, especially when compared to the directors other films like No Country for Old Men and later Inside Llewyn Davis. Rating: 56
bradley j Super Reviewer -
[img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon14.gif[/img] The Coen Brother's have had a hilarious line of quirky, zany comedies that have accompanied their darker, more violent films throughout their film making history, and Burn After Reading is basically a hybrid of the two in the same way that Fargo is. It's ruthless, and blackly comic at the same, and for my money it's one of their best. The key to what makes this film work is the cast and the direction more than anything else. The Coen's know how to make clever comedies out of any situation, and no matter how absurd the cleverly interlocking narrative gets they find a way to make it work. The direction and timing of the cast is absolutely perfect and the performances all around are fantastic, you can easily forgive the film for being too self aware of it's stupidity as a result. With a script filled with wit, and an unconventional storyline that gives laughs at every opportunity ,you completely forget about it's various flaws. It's an intelligent knockabout comedy, and personally I think it was one of the best comedies of 2008. It's very well put together, and I honestly can't remember laughing as nearly as much times as I did in the company of Burn After Reading at any film in a very long time. It is an absolutely hilarious comedy and to it's benefit manages to give us plenty of thrills, even in the exact same moments where it serves up good humour. However throughout the film you do get a sense that none of the events that take place are in any way consequential, for some people that has proven to be it's downfall, but truthfully, for me anyway, a lot of the Coen's funniest pieces of work aren't. In the case of Burn After Reading it gives you everything that the action thriller premise would suggest you would get, and gives you that rather than just using the set up as an excuse to execute the witticisms. The inspired gags, the quirkiness of the plot, and the various characters are infinitely memorable, deem it extremely satisfying, and effortlessly manages to shoot the spy conspiracy thriller genre to a whole new whimsical level of wonderfully offbeat hilarity.
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