BURN AFTER READING (2008) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich,
George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins
A disgruntled CIA op quits the agency and embarks on a tell-all memoir at the same time that his marriage starts falling apart. A disk containing the memoir falls into the hands of two dim-witted health club workers who think they can use it in a blackmail scheme. Little do they know. The Coen brothers strike again, with a devious comic thriller in which all the players are about equally clueless and the MacGuffin turns out to be worth nothing at all. Highlights: Tilda Swinton as a pediatrician with the bedside manner of Dracula, and Brad Pitt as a gym rat whose cognitive limitations are matched only by his inability to recognize them.
