12/21/08
Recently nominated for two Golden Globes including Best Picture-- Musical or Comedy and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for its star Frances McDormand, Universal Studios and Focus Features release Joel and Ethan Coen's wild mid-life crisis comedy disguised as a spy caper with the 12/21 DVD and Blu-ray debut of Burn After Reading. Par for the course for the camera shy and introspective Coen Brothers, the two provide a bare minimum of video interview footage in the three bonus featurettes but it's still a riot to hear them tell tales out of school about what it's like to turn handsome A-list stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney into first class dorks. Before we jump directly into the dossier of extras, I'll reprint the original review from September.
Last year in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Oscar nominee Casey Affleck stole the entire film away from his leading man, Brad Pitt. One year later, it’s Brad Pitt’s turn to steal some thunder of his own in Burn After Reading from Focus Features (quickly turning into the new Miramax).
And that he does and more in the newest film from the Coen Brothers — managing to nail every scene he’s in, get the most laughs and keep us wanting more of his character as opposed to the assorted band of oddballs and amoral madmen assembled in the filmmakers’ nihilistically absurdist take on espionage comedy.
Anxious first to try and get a “Good Samaritan” type of reward for ensuring the security of the “highly classified shit” they’ve discovered, soon their phone call to former CIA employee Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) turns into blackmail. Although it’s McDormand who makes the threat, no doubt their case wasn’t helped by Pitt’s incessant explanation about the “security of your shit” which understandably frustrates Cox, whom — awakened in the middle of the night — has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.
You’ll notice I’m including Pitt’s phrase of choice throughout as indeed, his character is quintessentially Coen; more specifically, he’s funny as hell, fond of vague repetition of words and phrases like “oh my God” as he runs down a hallway or “shit” which he uses as a noun, adjective, and verb. And while he no doubt engages in unscrupulous behavior and is the instigator of the inevitable bloody violence that follows (it’s a Coen Brothers film after all), aside from Ted the human puppy dog, Chad is the most likable one of the bunch. Thus, much like Shakespeare’s Mercutio, he gets all the best lines, detracts from the film’s artistry, and one-ups Clooney (although they only share one fateful scene) at every turn, and unfortunately he’s the one who is used far too little throughout.
Meet Chad:
View the Trailer:
Even though initially one doesn’t think “funny” and the Coen Brothers, especially given their last film, they’ve definitely aced the genre before with not just their most-referenced cult hit The Big Lebowski but also in one of the most ridiculously hysterical chase scenes of the 1980s as Nicolas Cage tries to outrun authorities like a live action cartoon in Raising Arizona. Moreover, they’ve even inserted humor in the unlikeliest of situations from Fargo to No Country, yet when they attempt a pure comedy but don’t go all out in the execution by muddling it with nihilistic and brutal bursts of action, the results have been mixed.
And while granted that Clooney is no doubt familiar with their brand of humor — having done so phenomenally well with it in O Brother, Where Art Thou -- it’s ultimately his extremely unpleasant and repugnant character along with an under-written and icy Tilda Swinton (Clooney’s Oscar winning costar who, along with Tom Wilkinson stole his own film last year, Michael Clayton, away from him again) that bogs down the plot of Burn as a whole.
It takes far too long to introduce us to not only Pitt’s Chad but McDormand’s middle-aged Linda. Tired of half-heartedly sleeping with married losers she meets online after a dull day at work, she has made the foolish and entirely Hollywood-like decision that she’s gone as far as she can with her current body and has decided she wants to improve her looks with four drastic plastic surgeries. Obviously a commentary of McDormand’s profession no doubt cooked up by McDormand and her husband Joel Coen, this plot alone would’ve helped add to the humor and we feel shortchanged once again when, just like a final description of events featuring Clooney’s character, McDormand’s character finally finds a solution to her problems but it’s all discussed by a CIA operative played by Juno’s dad (J.K. Simmons).
Joking that "it's our Tony Scott Bourne Identity kind of movie without the explosions," that marks a welcome return to their "underrated" first Washington D.C. film made when they were tweens, Joel and Ethan Coen remind us of their status as filmmaking's resident mad geniuses and men of very few words who seem to know as the cast frequently explains-- precisely what they want at all times.
Although George Clooney laughs that they're so skilled at ego massaging that they make actors think they are actually contributing ideas and are willing to try letting them do their own thing, ultimately it's a Coen film after all and one they seem to have already chopped (under their mutual editing pseudonym of Roderick Jaynes) long before either one yelled "Action!"
In a funny analysis of Clooney's third moronic character that finds him returning to Coen land for his idiot trilogy, "Welcome Back George," (which goes hand in hand with Clooney's Intolerable Cruelty and O Brother, Where Art Thou? the filmmakers, Clooney, and the costumer all relish in what a treat it was to make the debonair leading man into a high-waisted jean wearing, bad beard sporting loser but one of the most interesting-- yet still far too brief extras-- celebrated the entire cast.
In "DC Insiders Run Amock," the Coens discuss their goal to write roles for those they either knew or longed to work with (such as Swinton, Pitt, and Malkovich) and it's great fun to see McDormand roll her eyes in recollection of her first read-through which described her character's introduction in the script consisting of "close up on a woman's ass. Bare. Pale. Middle aged."
While her wardrobe was inspired by post-makeover Linda Tripp and there's some great production insights about turning New York into Georgetown for the shoot and transforming the cast, it was also a treat to hear that even an Oscar winning pro like McDormand admit that on her first day shooting alongside the scene-stealing Brad Pitt, she couldn't remember any of her lines as he continuously cracked her up.
Although Pitt is largely absent-- perhaps because of his incessant shooting schedule and upcoming epics like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which finds him re-teaming with his Fight Club director David Fincher) and we wish there would've been a feature length commentary, it's still a remarkable transfer from film to DVD with crystal clear picture and sound that was so impressive, for a moment, I mistook it for Blu-ray.
And true to form, leaving us to interpret just what exactly we all learned (or rather what we didn't) in a nod to J.K. Simmons line near the end of the film, it's only fitting that the Coens remain typically aloof, answering just enough for us to get a glimpse of insight but not so much that everything is spelled out which wouldn't be right for a Coen movie or a spy movie and especially for one that's a combination of the two.
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