Whaddaya Know?

So, Im back!

I watched Burn After Reading the other day, and my rating of it is Good/Great.

This movie is hard to rate, as it is hard to describe without revealing plot points. The movie revolves around a few characters, John Malkovich who plays Osbourne Cox, an ex CIA agent, Brad Pitt who plays Chad Feldheimer, a personal trainer at a gym, Frances McDormand who plays Linda Litzke, another employee at the gym, and George Clooney as Henry Pfarrer, who is an agent of the treasury.

This movie is the movie of an accidental conspiricy, revolving around the characters of Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand trying to sell a data cd that contains what they believe to be classified government intelligence. Brad Pitt's character is an overall outright doofus, and Frances Mcdormand's character is very insecure and very greedy.

Burn After Reading left me feeling bemused, because, just like the characters, you are clueless as to what is happening until it happens. This movie is a monument to modern day paranoia, as the characters all believe that the government is trying to get them, as they enact what seems to be a spy movie done by amatures. This movie brings to mind another movie which it seems to share some premise, The Man Who Knew Too Little. In The Man, Bill Murray believes he is in a improv spy play, but he really has stumbled upon a conspiricy. Burn After, however, is the polar opposite, where the characters believe they have found a conspiricy, but actually havent.

The facial expressions as well as the dialogue, had an enormous comedic effect on me, though it is more a humor of the silly and ridiculous than straight up comedy. I watched this whole movie grinning, albeit with a bemused expression to add to it, due to the "What Next" type of flow this movie has. This movie, though containing little slapstick, has an aura of slapstick style comedy to me.

Though this movie jumps around, and surprises you from left to right, the ending ties it up well, and i believe that it is the only ending i can imagine occuring for such a movie. The acting was supurb in every way, the characters being realistic (if in an unrealisticly paranoid state), they way they interacted, and all the minutiae coming together to make a Great, though weird, film.

Last thought: I can see this movie becoming a cult classic, because it isnt really a mainstream style movie, but it is great in all the ways that matter to me.

Well, Im off to see the Wizard

Tommy

(If your mind didnt automatically say "the wonderful wizard of oz", i am saddened :-P)