Hot Cast Burns

****
The fabulous Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, are certainly two of the more eccentric filmmakers in Hollywood these days. I often wonder, like the break-up of the Beatles, what complexion their work would take on if they made films separately. Which one carries the humor, which the hatchet?

Burn After Reading is another in the Coen’s series of dark humor montages. There’s no wood-chipper at the end but there is the often used hatchet, and as familiar as Hitchcock’s pacing there is the unsuspecting victim- amazed that their own death is so startlingly straightforward. What is revealed to us, and never the characters, is the complex manner in their end arrives. That, as always in the Coen’s work , is only part of the fun of this film.

CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) has just lost his job and plans revenge by writing a tell-all book. This is perfect timing for his philandering wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), to throw him out on his ear. She can now pressure Harry (George Clooney), the man she’s been having an affair with, to leave his wife. But Harry’s sleeping with several other women and he’s not crazy about the idea.

Meanwhile, at the Hard Bodies gym phys-ed instructor Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) is obsessing over her looks and trying to figure out how to get the money she needs for unnecessary plastic surgery. When she acquires a CD disc left in the gym with Osborne’s book notes on it she and fellow trainer Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) believe they have fallen into a trove of secret government “stuff.” They plan to blackmail Osborne or sell the information to the Russians.

As the film winds it’s way through the tight twists and hairpin turns it becomes disjointed in parts and seems to scurry from scene to scene, often without pause leaving characters in the lurch, but it’s the cast binds this screwball mess together, delivering all the laughs at the right moments. If you loved McDormand in Fargo, Clooney in Oh Brother, and just plain love John Malkovich, you’ll love this film. Oh yeah, then there’s Brad Pitt like you’ve never seen him … totally lovable, dude.