'Burn After Reading' review

Brad Pitt in "Burn After Reading"

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Try to follow: CIA agent Osborne’s (John Malkovich) confidential memoirs fall into the hands of bumbling gym employees Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand), who wants to extort money, from Osborne or any foreigners who want U.S. secrets, to pay for elective surgeries. Meanwhile, treasury employee Harry (George Clooney) sleeps with both Osborne’s wife (Tilda Swinton) and Linda, who’s secretly loved by her soft-spoken boss (Richard Jenkins).

Big questions: Can Joel and Ethan Coen come close to the greatness that was their Best Picture-winning “No Country for Old Men”? Or do they just want to revisit the dark humor of stuff like “The Big Lebowski”?

Catch it: If the Apatow crowd can get a bunch of friends together and screw around onscreen then so can the Coen brothers, who aim to make “Burn After Reading” a goofy movie with great actors playing good, strange characters. When it’s funny, it’s really funny, with the biggest joke of all that a complex governmental ordeal doesn’t add up to anything when everyone involved is clueless and in over their heads.

Skip it: If you think infidelity is easy. Linda learns that some cheating guys are careless enough to leave in their wallet their wife’s list of things to pick up at the store. Of course, he probably didn’t expect that his one-night stand would be looking through the wallet.

Bottom line: The Coens can certainly do better than “Burn After Reading,” which compulsively devolves into violent behavior and fails to focus on any characters for long enough to really take sides or sympathize with anyone. But this tale of internal “intelligence” that’s not intelligent at all boasts perfect, hysterical performances (particularly from Pitt, Clooney and Jenkins). It may not rise above its aspirations, but it certainly meets them.

Bonus: Osborne lectures Harry that there is, in fact, a difference between being lactose intolerant and experiencing acid reflux. It’s a silly scene, but it’s still probably a good thing that most pharmacists don’t sound like John Malkovich.

Video: Watch the review of 'Burn After Reading'

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