“Burn After Reading” (2008)

After impressing the academy and film noir fans the world over with their last, melancholy effort, a dark adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men”, wunderkind siblings Joel and Ethan Cohen have followed things up with a broad comedy.  Not that “Burn After Reading” is any less cynical.  As a portrayal of the paranoia and the cultural shortcomings of contemporary America it is perhaps even bleaker than its award winning predecessor.

On a certain level it is a parody of spy movies, with a couple of scenes seemingly lifted directly out of “The Good Shepard”, Robert De Niro’s woeful attempt at filming the history of the CIA.  John Malkovich is beautifully cast to type as a Princeton educated analyst for the agency whose life spirals out of control when he responds to a demotion by sulkily quitting his job and deciding to write his memoirs.  This does not sit well with his cold, career doctor wife - played by Tilda Swinton with great brittleness - who is already having an affair with George Clooney’s philandering Treasury officer.  In the process of beginning divorce proceedings Swinton inadvertently lets an early draft of her husband’s book fall into the wrong hands.

Those hands belong to a couple of dreamers who work at the memorably titled ‘Hard Bodies’ gym.  Brad Pitt is at his most goofy and acceptable as Chad, a moronic fitness instructor who mistakes the material’s value.  Frances McDormand enjoys another great part courtesy of her husband and brother-in-law as his friend and colleague, a desperate middle aged woman convinced that plastic surgery will improve the calibre of internet dating applicants showing interest in her.  Together the two hatch a plan to exploit their find.

The plot complications thereafter are best discovered first hand.  Beneath the black humour, sexual shenanigans and all round farcical elements the Coens’ vision is of an amoral society playing out petty and essentially meaningless games.  Seldom has their cinema seemed so Kubrickian, so resistant to sentiment or any softer emotions that might take the edge off the relentlessly stupid and juvenile actions of their self-centred characters.  The one figure who does display genuine, if misplaced and misunderstood affection ends up as collateral damage.

Perhaps the script isn’t quite as tight as a Kubrick or Billy Wilder satire.  On initial viewing at least the pace tends to slacken a bit in the second half before regathering for a quite perfectly cynical climax.  The Coens are so indifferent to the fate of their fictional creations that they decline to dramatise them directly, choosing instead to wrap things up rather quickly in a second hand manner.

This aside, “Burn After Reading” is laugh out loud funny from beginning to end.  The stars have evident fun parodying their own images, with Clooney’s role in particular  reflecting his off screen reputation as a notorious ladies’ man.  The supporting cast is also a typically rich one, with Richard Jenkins a stand out as McDormand’s love-struck boss, and JK Simmons hilarious as a confused CIA executive.   Just as amusing for those of a certain age is veteran David Rasche, whose intelligence officer character isn’t a million miles away from the one he played on television in the 1980s in the cult farce “Sledgehammer”.

A reflection of the inane logic of the post-cold war era - a kind of follow-up and companion piece to Wilder’s “One Two Three” and Kubrick’s “Dr Strangelove” - “Burn After Reading” is a class act from filmmakers at the height of their game.