BURN AFTER READING

MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence.
Run time: 96 min

Having seen No Country for Old Men, most people, including me, have high expectation on the latest Coen flick. However, anyone seeks gore and shocking scenes will be disappointed but still, zany characters are abundant here. It is slightly below Fargo but not as good as Miller's Crossing or No Country.

As always this film is difficult to classify, is it crime? Drama? Thriller? Comedy? or amalgamation of any well defined genre? Greed is the major theme here, apart from alcoholism and bizarre coincidence.

C.I.A. agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), is being demoted for being an alcoholic and perhaps having a temper as hot as boiling pasta. His wife, the icy bitchy Katie (Tilda Swinton), doesn't like this at all. Meanwhile, her lover, ex-secret service agent/federal Marshall, Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), is trying to decide whether to request a divorce from his wife to be with Katie while still browsing internet for blind dates. That's how Harry meets a gym worker named Linda Litzke (France McDormand), who thinks that inner beauty is only some bullshit therefore needs money for some cosmetic surgical procedures. With her accomplice, Chad (Brad Pitt), three steps away from having a naivety of Forrest Gump, has the leverage, a copy of Osborne Cox memoir he accidentally found on his gym.

Both had tried to blackmail Osborne to no success and then try to sell the secret to the Russian. Now if I have to tell the bizarre coincidence and the plot that goes round and round, it would be a very bizarre review.

The shock came after 60 minutes as one of the character "accidentally" died/killed (very difficult to determine which one really happens).

George Clooney and Frances McDormand has the most interesting chemistry as for John Malkovich, there's no explanation why he is so hot headed.

What really bothers me is the satellite image at the beginning and end of this film. What was that all about? This film is about bizarre and witty coincidences paired with quirky characters, incompetent agency, affairs and human greed, does it need some zoom out/in of a building from space? Shouldn't the money for that shot directed to pay another character in this movie to keep things stranger than ever? Like hiring Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan for instance?