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Mood:
- CleverHumorousExcitingCynicalBiting
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Plot:
- EspionageEscapadesDisorderMisfit PartnersNothing Goes RightObsessive QuestHuman NatureInfidelity more...
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Genres:
- ComedyCrime
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Time/Period:
- Contemporary21st Century
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Place:
- VirginiaUrban
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Praise:
- BlockbusterCritically Acclaimed
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Humor:
- FarceVerbal ByplayDark HumorSatire
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Style:
- Ensemble Cast
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Attitudes:
- Not SeriousRealistic
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Flag:
- ProfanitySexual ContentViolent Content
Does this gene fit Burn After Reading?
Find it on:
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Burn After Reading, 2008
English
USA, UK, France
Profile of Burn After Reading
Burn After Reading can be described as cynical, clever, and exciting. The plot revolves around espionage, disorder, and escapades. Its comic aspect comes from verbal byplay and farce. Burn After Reading's main genres are comedy and crime. In terms of style, it stars an ensemble cast. In approach, it is not serious and realistic. Burn After Reading is set, at least in part, in an urban environment. It is located in Virginia. It takes place in contemporary times. Burn After Reading has received attention for being a blockbuster and critically acclaimed. Note that it involves sexual content, violent content, and profanity.
Summary of Burn After Reading
With their overtly comedic follow-up BURN AFTER READING, the Coen Brothers return--about a third of the way--from the dark, dank recesses of the human psyche they traversed in their Oscar-winning NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. For those unfamiliar with the landscape of modern movie psychoanalysis, this puts the fraternal filmmakers square in the cruel, misanthropic, and farcical realm of their 1990s-era body of work, somewhere between the tragicomic crime thriller of FARGO and the disconnected noir-homage anti-storytelling of THE BIG LEBOWSKI, with 2007's NO COUNTRY retroactively adding new nihilism-tinged dimensions of smart skepticism to the proceedings. In a more linear trajectory, BURN AFTER READING also stands as the third entry, after BLOOD SIMPLE and FARGO, in what could be an unofficial Tragedy of Human Idiocy trilogy, wherein characters make the most outlandishly moronic moves to devastating consequences simply by adhering to true human behavior. Indeed, Carter Burwell's emotionally weighty score, which washes over biting scenes of explosive, anesthetizing belly laughs, is very reminiscent of his FARGO work.
BURN is ostensibly structured and propelled by a spy-thriller plotline involving a classified CD lost by a disgraced CIA spook and found by two simple gym employees. But, in actuality, it's simply--amazingly--a collection of brilliant caricature studies interwoven by veracious, if Coenesque, social interactions, as epitomized by the pathos of the Frances McDormand character's precipitous quest for cosmetic surgery. The CIA superior who learns of the film's events (always second-hand and sometimes along with the viewer) doesn't know what to make of it, and why would he? This is the first Coen film in almost 20 years not shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins, yet the "new" guy, Emmanuel Lubezki (CHILDREN OF MEN), has created as visceral and emotionally fraught a high-definition cartoon as any since BARTON FINK.
Details
| Language: | English |
| Country: | USA, UK, France |
| Release date: | 12 September 2008 |
| Runtime: | 96 min |
Cast and Crew
as Harry Pfarrer
as Osbourne Cox
as Linda Litzke
as Chad Feldheimer
as Katie Cox
Photos
Clips
Critics Reviews
Philadelphia Inquirer
A goofy screwball romp that affords a gaggle of A-listers the chance to hambone around in antic style.
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- by: Steven Rea
Newsweek
That's the paradox that makes this parade of folly so much fun: it feels as if everyone involved is having a high old time, and their enthusiasm is contagious.
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- by: David Ansen
Users Reviews
In every scene there are two choices: 1. get out and all is forgotten or 2. stay and everything becomes more disasterous. It wouldn't a Coen brothers film if any of the characters picked option one. The story isn't as crazy or intense as perennial...
- 04.August.2010
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- by: Dan Cassavaugh
- Dan Cassavaugh rated this movie
0/10
Coen brothers on their best game here. This is a contemporary CIA spy comedy all dressed up as a serious drama. (Think "Breach.") The cast is just terrific, and the directors have underplayed everything just a hair which is pitch perfect...
- 29.March.2010
- |
- by: Democritus
- Democritus rated this movie0/10
