Burn After Reading 2008

Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: Out of boredom or a need to unbalance their audiences, the Coens' follow-up is a bumbler, its first half as aimless as a drunk spider making threads without plotting a trap. Read more

Ben Lyons, At the Movies: , Frances McDormand might get nominated for an Academy Award in a supporting role. She was great. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: On screen, delusional schmoes are more fun than smart people, and in the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, the imperious former spook played by John Malkovich accuses his blackmailers...of heading a league of morons. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: 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.' Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: 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. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Burn After Reading could just as well have been called Forget After Seeing. Read more

Mark Rahner, Seattle Times: A cruelly, insanely hilarious comedy populated with imbeciles whose appetites lead to giant helpings of Just Desserts. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Burn's land of the perpetually deluded works as an amusing place to visit, but an even better place to flee. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Mostly we're along for a curious ride. Individual scenes are enjoyable, some laugh-out-loud funny. But it's not a story being told, really, so much as an exercise in ongoing and increasing stupidity on the part of the characters. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The difference between Burn After Reading and much better Coen comedies like Raising Arizona, Fargo, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? is that the brothers' smugness has finally gone over the top. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Joel and Ethan Coen have such a distinctive creative palette that there ought to be a paint color named after them. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Burn After Reading is neither an instant classic like No Country for Old Men nor a psychedelic playground like The Big Lebowski. But it is a Coen brothers kick in the pants. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Burn After Reading is a piffle, but it's a savagely amusing one. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: The ensemble is at once loose and pitch perfect. Hardly a one of them plays a wholly likable person, yet each reveals the despearate or stupid humanity of their characters. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: A thoroughly disposable comic romp made by a bunch of people who probably should have been working on bigger and better things, Burn After Reading is sure to frustrate just about anyone who goes to see it. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Once more in Burn After Reading [the Coens] goof around, in their arch, bemused way, with conventions of genre -- a little screwball here, some spy spoof there. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: The reason this film gets a slightly above average grade is the strength of Brad Pitt's silliness and the momentum the movie has near the end. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Screwball fare is meant to be lightweight, but this is just empty. In the end, Burn After Reading doesn't add up so much as go up -- in a puff of thin smoke, barely there and then gone. Read more

Stephen Becker, Dallas Morning News: As a chance to watch a gaggle of Serious Actors ham it up in an intricately plotted (though easy to follow) yarn, it's a well-executed diversion. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Doesn't stand up to Fargo or Blood Simple, but it's a chance to watch some top-notch actors jump their rails and head into terra bizarro. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: We are no longer in No Country, but we are assuredly in Coen Country. Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: Burn After Reading is a blackly comic illustration of Murphy's Law, set in the Washington world of CIA espionage, and populated with a cast of delusional dunces who are a wonder to behold. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Even black comedy requires that the filmmakers love someone, and the mock cruelties in Burn After Reading come off as a case of terminal misanthropy. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Extremely well-cast. Extremely well-written, too (with one of those clockwork plots -- beloved of the Coens since Blood Simple -- in which people, fatally, act before getting all the facts). Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: It has its moments, but is all too easy to erase from your memory. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Joel and Ethan Coen's Burn After Reading, from their own screenplay, strikes me as one of the most willfully awful movies I've ever seen. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: With a wealth of lip-smacking character turns and a plot that keeps us off our guard, Burn After Reading takes its entertaining place among the better lesser Coen brothers films, even if it doesn't burn itself into our memory. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A goofy screwball romp that affords a gaggle of A-listers the chance to hambone around in antic style. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Burn After Reading likely won't be a major Oscar contender for 2009, but that doesn't mean it won't offer a hell of a good time in theaters toward the end of 2008. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It's funny, sometimes delightful, sometimes a little sad, with dialogue that sounds perfectly logical until you listen a little more carefully and realize all of these people are mad. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: The film is hilarious in patches, shocking in patches, utterly convincing in patches and close to brilliant in patches. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: In the end, the movie doesn't add up to much, but it's fast and funny and lets a bunch of top-drawer actors exercise their comic muscles. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: For those who like their black comedy without a trace of cream or sugar, Burn holds up as a minor Coen brothers comedy, a Hudsucker Proxy rather than a Big Lebowski. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Shot, scored and edited like a paranoid conspiracy thriller, but acted with comic exuberance by a brilliant ensemble cast, it presents itself seriously while making hardly any sense at all. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Coens are loopy stylists, and it's often amusing to watch this comedy of errors unfold. But after a masterpiece like No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading is classified as disposable. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: None of it makes strict sense, which is why it's called screwball, but in its own crazy way Burn After Reading nails the essential folly of humans pretending to be civilized. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Burn After Reading is a movie about stupidity that left me feeling stupid. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: The transition from Oscar-winning masterpiece to this mess is especially depressing. Burn After Reading is a disposable lark, and it's treated by the filmmakers as such; Forget After Seeing would be a far more honest title. Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: For fans of the Coens... it suggests, especially on the heels of No Country for Old Men, that they have rediscovered their cinematic vision after several lean years. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The brisk pace and sharp humor in Burn After Reading is a welcome relief after weeks of witless comedies and overblown action flicks. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Everything here has been dialed up to an almost grotesquely exaggerated extent, making for a film that feels misjudged from the opening scene and thereafter only occasionally hits the right note. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: A characteristically supercilious and crisply shot clown show filled with cartoon perfs and predicated on extravagant stupidity. Read more

Neely Tucker, Washington Post: 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. Read more