Burn after Reading

If you know anything about me, you know I love the Coen brothers. So, it is a little surprising that I took so long to see their new movie Burn After Reading. Especially considering my favorite actor John Malkovich is in an amazing cast that also includes George Cloney, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand. Unfortunately I can't say this is their best effort. What is this movie about? It's hard to say. The film opens with Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) being demoted from a mid level CIA position due to a drinking problem. Instead of standing for this injustice he quits and decides to write his memoirs. His wife (Tilda Swinton) wants a divorce so she copies all his financial info onto a CD, which also includes the beginnings of Cox's book. This CD is lost and recovered at Hardbodies Gym where two idiots (Brad Pitt and Francis McDormand) find it and think they can extort some money from Cox to get it back. This is were it gets out of hand as the layers of deceit and who is spying on who, get a little too convoluted. The CIA supervisor (J.K. Simmons) who is running the investigation seems to be as confused as the viewer, when he says, "What did we learn? Not to do this again. But I have no idea what we did."

The problem is that none of the characters are very interesting, you don't love or hate any of them too much, even though they are all bad people and at times can be funny. The problem is that this movie doesn't go anywhere. When it's over you really don't care.