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Burn After Reading
Focus Features

6.3 based on 37 reviews Read critic reviews How did we calculate this? based on 158 votes Read user comments Rate this movie

FILM:

• Barton Fink
• Blood Simple: The Director's Cut
• Fargo
• Intolerable Cruelty
• Miller's Crossing
• No Country for Old Men
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• Raising Arizona
• The Big Lebowski
• The Hudsucker Proxy
• The Ladykillers
• The Man Who Wasn't There

• Internet Movie Database
• Official Studio Site

MPAA RATING: R for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence

Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, and J.K. Simmons

An ousted CIA official's memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise gym employees intent on exploiting their find. (Focus Features)

GENRE(S):	Comedy  |  Crime
WRITTEN BY:	Ethan Coen Joel Coen
DIRECTED BY:	Ethan Coen Joel Coen
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 16, 2008  Theatrical: September 12, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	96 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

After the portentous "No Country for Old Men," Joel and Ethan Coen return to their trademark brand of cruel, misanthropic farce, and for dark laughs and hurtling narrative momentum this spy caper is their best work since "Fargo."

91

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

This is the loopiest star vehicle in ages.

90

Film Threat Zack Haddad

A roller coaster of emotions that will have you laughing one moment and gasping in shock the next.

83

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Nothing more and nothing less than a savvy and talented cast having its way with a clever, hilarious script, with absolutely no weighty issues at stake.

80

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Because it's a Coen brothers film before it's anything else, this is about as dark and nihilistic as comedies are allowed to get before the laughter dies bitterly on your lips.

80

Newsweek David Ansen

That's the paradox that makes this parade of folly so much fun: it feels as if everyone involved is having a high old time, and their enthusiasm is contagious.

80

Empire Ian Nathan

If "No Country For Old Men" was vintage port, Burn After Reading is a shot of tequila: eye watering and hard to swallow, but the after-effect is terrific.

75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is a thriller with a high quotient of comedic elements or, if you prefer, a comedy with a high quotient of thriller elements. As is always the case with a production of Joel & Ethan, it's difficult to classify, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A goofy screwball romp that affords a gaggle of A-listers the chance to hambone around in antic style.

75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The characters are zany, the plot coils upon itself with dizzy zeal, and the roles seem like a perfect fit for the actors -- yes, even Brad Pitt, as Chad, a gum-chewing, fuzzy-headed physical fitness instructor. I've always thought of him as a fine actor, but here he reveals a dimension that, shall I say, we haven't seen before.

75

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

One of the Coens' more playful projects, much lighter and significantly slighter than "No Country for Old Men" or "Fargo," but it's put together with such perfection that you can't help but be won over.

75

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It would be no country for movie lovers without the Coens. They still manage to run unmuzzled while the rest of Hollywood runs scared.

75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

This feels like a second-shelf Coen comedy, particularly when compared to their no-less-shaggy "The Big Lebowski."

75

USA Today Claudia Puig

It's consistently funny -- with witty dialogue and offbeat banter that stays in your head for days.

75

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The brothers' dark, all-star farce about sex, lies and surveillance is pretty damned funny.

75

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Everyone in the movie is a buffoon or a dolt. No one is redeemable. The humor comes at the expense of the characters: You're always laughing at them, never with them. The Coens have never seemed this disdainful, this mocking, of their fellow man.

75

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

It's as pitiless and brutal as any of their pictures and funnier than any except "Raising Arizona."

75

San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego

Doesn't add up to much, but it's fast and funny and lets a bunch of top-drawer actors exercise their comic muscles.

70

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Beneath its movie star clowning, its awful-but-relatable heroine and its lightweight gags, Burn After Reading poses an implicit challenge to its viewers: Can you figure out why this comedy isn't very funny? Could that be because its central proposition is that the people in the theater are just as stupid, just as gullible, just as eager to be deceived as the people on the screen?

70

Village Voice J. Hoberman

The Coens return to familiar territory with the parody thriller Burn After Reading, a characteristically supercilious and crisply shot clown show filled with cartoon perfs and predicated on extravagant stupidity.

70

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Joel and Ethan Coen clearly are in a prankish mood, knocking out a minor piece of silliness with all the trappings of an A-list studio movie.

67

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Burn After Reading, the new film from the Coen Brothers, won't be mistaken for "Fargo" anytime soon. Or "Barton Fink," or "The Man Who Wasn' There." Those films were black comedy done to perfection.

63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

It's clear that Burn After Reading is a wannabe cult favourite -- some viewers may embrace it; many more will just want to burn after watching.

63

New York Post Kyle Smith

The film has enough funny lines and weird situations - some comedy business with a sex chair lovingly constructed by the Clooney character is the highlight - that it could age into a cult film like "The Big Lebowski."

63

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The script is clever and would be brilliant if it worked.

50

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Shallow and proud of it, an antic cartoon that lacks the comic inspiration to go the distance.

50

Slate Dana Stevens

It's a clever setup for a spoof of the espionage thriller, but despite the film's intermittent pleasures (Pitt's gum-snapping dolt chief among them), the result is oddly airless.

50

Variety Todd McCarthy

Nothing about the project's execution inspires the feeling that this was ever intended as anything more than a lark, which would be fine if it were a good one. As it is, audience teeth-grinding sets in early and never lets up.

50

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The movie is overplowed, even if Brad Pitt's debut as a Coen comedy player is eye-catching.

50

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Burn After Reading is untranscendent, a little tired, the first Coen brothers picture on autopilot. In the words of the CIA superior, it’s "no biggie."

50

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The clubby, predictably self-amused comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen, has a tricky plot, visual style, er, to burn, but so little heart as to warrant a Jarvik 8.

50

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Clooney remains as game as ever, but the way he and McDormand push the energy here, you feel the strain. Pitt, just floating through, comes off best. He doesn't judge the moron he's playing; he just is.

50

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's a cheerful trifle tossed off by the Coen brothers in their self-enchanted mode, an approach to comedy that shrugs off comedy's cardinal rule -- Don't Act Funny.

50

Washington Post Neely Tucker

Oh, the high-octane cast works hard. But there's nothing to suggest anybody off camera tried that hard, which is fatal to a Coen outing.

40

The New Yorker David Denby

Even Frances McDormand, the salt-of-the-earth actress who has warmed so many of the Coen brothers movies, falls into a queasy dead zone.

40

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Hopped up like a Bugs Bunny cartoon on mescaline and as chatty and uppity as a 5-year-old, Burn After Reading could be seen as the Coen brothers' need to let loose after the tightly wound "No Country for Old Men."

30

Time Richard Corliss

Either the Coens failed, or I didn't figure out what they're attempting. I must be like Harry or Osborne, pretending to a sophistication I lack. Burn After Reading is a movie about stupidity that left me feeling stupid.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 158 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

jimi gave it a9:
Confirms what we've known all along: just about everyone in Washington is a lot dumber than they think they are...if only the real ones would get the poetic justice these clowns do!

Lin L. gave it a2:
Despite the fantastic cast, this was extraordinarily boring and bereft of laughs. I kept waiting for it to get funny, clever, entertaining . . . never happened.

Major M. gave it a7:
It is a overall good film with 3 roles that really make the film. Brad Pitt,George Clooney,John Malkovich are the 3 roles that make this movie good. you really forget how good Pitt is until you watch his movies. it was good and worth the time to watch.

christian p. gave it a10:
I'm completely baffled at some of the comments here. One person who gave this movie a score of THREE out of TEN (!?!?!?!) wrote, "I love Coen Brothers movies. This one is a dud...Weird people acting stupid and killing each other...Very, very disappointed." I'm sorry, but if you truly love the films of the Coen brothers, you'd come to expect (and look forward to) "Weird people acting stupid and killing each other." Am I wrong?! This film was funny, clever, well written, dark, startling, quirky, odd, and everything else we expect from these filmmakers. Why isn't this rated much much higher?!?!!?

Steve P gave it an8:
I heard one reviewer say that this film is a “Bubby Movie,” yah know one of those films where every actor is friends with every other actor and the director (or in this case directors) and they all basically just dick around on camera for 2 hours and call it a movie. I wouldn’t call it that necessarily call Burn After Reading that but I would call it a “Hollywood Indie.” A Hollywood Indie is a mainstream Hollywood film with a big budget and a huge A-List cast, but whose script sounds like it was written by a struggling Brooklyn artist who pervious experiences in film consisted of making Pods for Current TV about how great Barrack Obama apparently is. The Coen brothers seem to be the kings of Hollywood Indies, since they directed half of the ones I can name off the top of my head. Burn After Reading will most likely be counted among the lesser of the Coen Brothers films, and rightly so since it does seem to lack the aesthetic appeal of their previous films, but I don’t think this film should be counted as one of the their funnier films. Most of the Coen Brother’s “Comedies” aren’t really comedies, their more like movies that are weird in a kind of funny way. Yet the Invisible Pigeon Holeing Society must assign these films a genre, and since their not weird enough to be labeled surrealist or experimental, they get the title comedies simply because a few people in the theatre may giggle a few of the “Jokes” in the film. The point I am desperately trying to get to here is that, I didn’t laugh at either The Big Lebowski or O’ Brother, Where Art’ Thou despite the fact they are rather funny, I laughed several times at Burn After Reading, and I laughed rather hard to. Burn After Reading is weird, as are all Dark Comedies, but it’s not quite to the level as most Coen films, weather this a complement of an insult is a matter of interpretation. What really impressed me in this film was Brad Pitt’s and Frances McDormand’s performances, everyone else’s performances were “take it or leave it.” Brad and Frances are like some kind of weird Fitness Center Employee Duo who stumble upon CIA secrets somehow and try to milk to cow for what it’s worth. I knew Frances was a good actress, but Brad Pitt acting well is something new to me. I mean I always through his performance in Fight Club was good only because he really was playing the same character he usually does but this time in a quality film. I don’t know if the Coen Brothers did something to him, or maybe he’s been hiding something from us, but his character is by far the best in the film. But then again his character is a dribbling idiotic health nut with some mildly homosexual personality traits, so maybe Brad wasn’t even acting, maybe he was just being himself (Ha Ha Ha). What makes Burn after reading less of a film then most Coen Brother’s work is that there is not any real thought involved. The second I pressed the stop button on my DVD I almost totally forgot about the movie, a good film is one can’t get out of your head for a week after watching it, and most Coen Brother films do that. Listen, Burn After Reading is out on DVD now so it’s defiantly worth renting, especially if you have Netflix. It’s good for some laughs, and it’s still rather Coen-y so go pick it up.

John H gave it a4:
Starts off ok but just gets stupid. I can't recommend this one.

Camille gave it a3:
I was surprised this movie got all the attention and praise that it did. For a movie advertised as a dark and sophisticated comedy, it failed to deliver. The pointless, meandering plot did nothing to hold it together and I think I laughed once during the entire film. I can see where they were *trying* to go with it, but all in all it was poorly executed, and when the movie was over, I was annoyed and disappointed. I was told it was 'funnier' the second time watching it, but I can't think of any reason why I would sit through it again.

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