A smart company about dumb people

Fresh off their brilliant, Oscar-winning “No Country For Old Men,” the Coen brothers return to what they have historically done best: making entertaining movies with over-the-top hair-do’s, over-the-top plots and over-the-top characters.
 
Although the plot is as odd as any in their previous outings, the movie, more than any other Coen brothers film, succeeds solely on the back of its all-star cast, which includes George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton and John Malkovich.

It’s hard to say who actually stars in the movie, since each actor gets their fair share of screen time. That being said, Frances McDormand and Pitt play health trainers Linda Litzke and Chad Feldheimer, who stumble across a disc of what they think are top-secret files from ex-CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (Malkovich).
 
After their attempt to get a reward from Osbourne fails, they result to blackmail and once again, fail tremendously – and hilariously.

Swinton plays Osbourne’s soon to be ex-wife who is cheating on him with Clooney’s Harry Pfarrer, a sex addict who is actually cheating on his wife with not only Swinton but McDormand as well.

Got that? It’s actually a lot simpler than it seems on paper.

The movie even pokes fun at these ridiculous entanglements with a subplot involving a CIA executive explaining to his boss (a perfectly cast and hilarious J.K. Simmons) what is going on midway through the film and at the end. “They um, all seem to be sleeping with each other, sir,” the executive explains.
 
This subplot, which only takes up about six minutes of the movie, is some of the most gut-busting six minutes I’ve seen in some time.

The movie does have its flaws, however. It starts off way too slow and ends too abruptly. It’s also ironic and a bit unfortunate to see that the funniest scenes involve relative unknowns.

In the filmography of Coen Bros. movies, “Burn After Reading” is not as funny as “The Big Lebowski,” nor is it as clever as “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” but thankfully, it’s not as hit-and-miss as “Intolerable Cruelty.”

Instead, it’s consistently smirk-inducing with more than a few belly laughs.
After a movie like “No Country,” which had such a subtle and important message, it’s interesting to see the directors do a complete 180 by crafting a movie whose only apparent message is that everyone is amazingly dim-witted.

But luckily for the audience, sometimes dim-witted can be very funny.