Burn After Reading [Blu-ray]

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Joel Coen

Overview

A CIA agent who is currently in the process of writing a book loses the disc containing his only manuscript in this comedic tale of espionage that reunites filmmaking duo Joel and Ethan Coen with Intolerable Cruelty and O Brother, Where Art Thou? star George Clooney.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/21/2008
UPC:	0025195049085
Original Release:	2008
Rating:	R
Source:	FOCUS FEATURES
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo, DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound]
Language:	English
Time:	1:36:00

Special Features

Finding the Burn: the making of Burn After Reading; DC Insiders Run Amuck: an all-star cast creates the world of Washington, DC, insiders all trying to get ahead or find true love; Welcome Back George: this comedy piece features Mr. Clooney as he retuns for his third collaboration with Ethan and Joel

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

George Clooney	Actor
Frances McDormand	Actor
John Malkovich	Actor
Brad Pitt	Actor
Tilda Swinton	Actor
Richard Jenkins	Actor
J.R. Horne	Divorce Lawyer
Brian O'Neill	Hal
Carter Burwell	Composer
Karla Mosley	Party Guest
Robert Prescott	Process Server
Elizabeth Marvel	Actor
David Rasche	Actor
J.K. Simmons	Actor
Olek Krupa	Actor
Dermot Mulroney	Star of 'Coming Up Daisy'
Michael Countryman	Actor
Hamilton Clancy	Peck
Armand Schultz	Olson
Raul Aranas	Manolo
Pun Bandhu	Doug Magruder
Kevin Sussman	Tuchman Marsh Man
Jeffrey DeMunn	Cosmetic Surgeon
Richard Poe	Stretching Gym Patron
Carmen M. Herlihy	Prospective Gym Customer
Judy Frank	Lawyer's Secretary
Sándor Técsy	Russian Embassy Escort
Yury Tsykun	Senior Russian Embassy Man
Matt Walton	Morning Show Host
Lori Hammel	Morning Show Hostess
Crystal Bock	PR Woman
Patrick Boll	Sandy's Man

Technical Credits

Joel Coen

Joel Coen	Director,Director,Screenwriter,Screenwriter,Producer,Producer
Eric Fellner	Executive Producer,Producer
Robert Graf	Executive Producer,Producer
Tim Bevan	Executive Producer,Producer
Ellen Chenoweth	Casting
Randall Balsmeyer	Special Effects
Craig Berkey	Sound Effects
Joel Dougherty	Sound Effects
Laurel Bridges	Sound Effects
Johnna Chism	Sound Effects
Catherine Harper	Sound Effects
Devin Maggio	Special Effects
David Diliberto	Producer
Peter Kurland	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

The opening shot of the Coen Brothers' new black comedy Burn After Reading takes the viewer from outer space to inside CIA headquarters. The last shot takes us out of that building, back up into space. This device makes it clear that Joel and Ethan are playing God. They have devised a shaggy dog tale where almost every single person acts only in their own self-interest, and nobody gets away unscathed. It's the darkest comedy they've made since Barton Fink, and it might be mistaken for a work of genuine misanthropy if it wasn't so funny. The complicated -- but never confusing -- plot begins when CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) learns from his boss that he is being demoted. Cox quits in a fit of pique, all the while throwing F-bombs around with comfort and authority -- like a Princeton-educated Scorsese gangster. The language, as well as the fact that characters are always saying Osborne's last name, make it clear that right from the beginning that vulgarity is one of the movie's major themes. Upon learning of his unemployment, Cox's wife (Tilda Swinton) hires a lawyer to begin divorce proceedings, a move that eventually leads to a lost CD that may contain sensitive state secrets. That information comes into the hands of Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), a middle-aged woman who needs lots of money in order to reinvent herself with massive amounts of plastic surgery; and her dim best friend, Chad, played with wonderful comic timing by Brad Pitt. Chad swears just as often as Cox does, but for very different reasons. Where Cox's profanity reveals his boundless sense of superiority, Chad simply knows no better way to express himself. When Chad meets face to face with Cox to blackmail him, it's a hilarious clash between an idiot and an a-hole. It would be unfair to reveal how inveterate womanizer Harry (George Clooney) -- and his newest invention -- figure into the plot, because watching this story unfold is so much fun. The movie is written like a screwball comedy, but it's paced like a drama. When audiences might expect the film to build a head of steam like the last half-hour of Raising Arizona, the Coen Brothers refuse to play along. It would appear that they are interested in something more than a straightforward comedy; all of the characters are morally ugly, a fact underscored by the movie's anti-glamorous look -- there is a prominent lack of makeup on just about everybody. The film is populated with realistic grotesques whose selfish, vulgar actions have ramifications that extend far beyond their myopic self-interest. The movie works as a silly R-rated comedy to be sure, but it does have the kick of an adult Grimm Brothers fairy tale with a moral about what awaits those who behave very badly. In its own way, Burn After Reading is as despairing a film about human beings as No Country for Old Men, it just happens to be full of belly laughs rather than existential angst.