The latest movie I caught was Burn After Reading by The Coen Bros. The names attached to this movie were enough to bring me in, some of my favorite actors star in it including Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and George Clooney, and the Coen Brothers aren’t too shabby either.
So maybe my expectations were too high, but I found that it really didn’t deliver on all the hype. The Coen Brothers are usually great at delivering odd characters and making them believable, rather than animated (think The LadyKillers, No Country For Old Men and the almighty Fargo) but this time around just the opposite happened.
In this case the Bad outweighed the Good, so lets start there.
The Bad: The humor was contrived. That really is the main criticism I have. If you are going to do dry/dark comedy genre of humor, it really needs to be spot on, and this wasn’t. I found myself laughing here and there but nothing amazing. Like I mentioned above, the characters were also more animated than unusual, and a weird laugh isn’t always the way to fix that. The story line is also very odd and unbelievable.
The Good: The cast is great (with the exception of Brad Pitt on this one). John Malkovich and Frances McDormand really hit it out of the park once again. Though the story makes little sense, they do manage to make it somewhat compelling and keep you guessing what’s coming next. I’m going to show my sadist side and say that I also enjoyed the violence!
The overall verdict, if you are expecting another Coen Brothers masterpiece, you’ll be disappointed. But the cast and especially Frances McDormand still make it worth a DVD rental. What did others think?
– Andy
haha, nice review. though I think Brad Pitt did a great job in it! but overall it wasnt great no uyr right ther