REVIEW: BURN AFTER READING

BURN AFTER READING

Armed with a DVR remote on a Saturday night, Lovely Wife and I perused the latest to see what we could watch and settled on "Burn After Reading". After all, it was a Coen brothers flick with Clooney, Malkovich, Pitt... what could go wrong?

A lot.

I'm not against different formulas, we should all try something new, but this just doesn't work. Here we have an interesting plot, great character traits, unexpected twists, orchestrated in a brilliant little "POOF" of "who cares and why did I waste the time watching it?"

Lovely Wife, who will sit through any movie, she doesn't give up -- felt pretty ripped off by the last five minutes. It's not a matter of a "good" ending or not, or if you just don't understand the director's technique, there's absolutely no payoff and nobody cares, to wait for the end or through another Coen brothers film.

Too many different POV's, the only character we have a chance to get close too is Clooney, who plays "not such a nice guy". A senseless killing at the end tops it off.

To each his own. I'm not even going to google the box office numbers because just being a Coen film with Clooney and Malkovich influences the gross.

So, if you've got some time to waste, go ahead. If not, you might want to use this piece of advice --

"Burn Before Watching"...

Then read a book.