Although there was a very good performance from Brad Pitt, the rest of the cast which included George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand, were no better than average.
The film starts off with Malkovich's character, Osbourne Cox, who is an analyst with the CIA, being given his marching orders. This triggers a whole new series of events starting off with him deciding out of the blue to write his memoirs as a chance to get his revenge.
The events that follow are bizarre and rather far-fetched to be honest. At his local gym, he manages to lose the disk containing this highly sensitive material and it ends up in the hands of Brad Pitt's character, Chad Feldheimer, and Linda Litzke (played by Frances McDormand), who run the gym.
These two dim-witted characters then try to sell this information and then start blackmailing Cox before the cosmetic surgery-obsessed Litzke becomes involved with George Clooney's character through an internet dating site only to find that he is having an affair with Cox's wife.
It's a confusing series of events and the resulting tangle of emotions between all of the main characters doesn't really make this a very good movie. You always get the impression that the movie isn't really going anywhere and it certainly could have benefited from a better plot. When I was watching Burn After Reading, I found it difficult to continue watching right through to the end because I didn't really care about how the story was going to end.
The characters themselves were not very believable either and in many respects were completely over the top, whilst the plot was overcomplicated and not very captivating in truth. There are some funny moments but they are few and far between and the presence of Clooney, Pitt and Malkovich doesn't hide the fact that the basic story itself isn't that great.
I'm sure fans of Clooney and Pitt will enjoy the movie but the average film fan will probably not enjoy it that much. Overall I would probably give Burn After Reading no more than 2 out of 5 stars. It's an average film that could have been a lot better given the pedigree of the Coen brothers.
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