Burn After Reading was written and directed by the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan. Do their names sound familiar to you? They should! The Coen Brothers walked away with the Oscar last year for No Country For Old Men. Burn After Reading features an all-star cast with such names as Brad Pitt, George Clooney, John Malkovich, J.K. Simmons, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton. The film opened up in the United States on September 12, 2008 to generally positive user reviews, but it received mixed critical reviews.

Burn After Reading is a comedic spy thriller that takes place in suburban areas outside our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C. The film opens up with Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), a CIA Analyst, quitting his job after being demoted over a drinking problem he has. Depressed, Osbourne ponders upon what he should do next in his life. He decides to write a memoir about his life in the CIA. Meanwhile, his wife, Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton), is having an affair with Treasury Agent Harry Pfarer (George Clooney). Also, Katie is secretly planning on divorcing Osbourne to hopefully seek a life together with Harry who is also married. At the advice of Katie’s divorce lawyer, she copies many of her husband’s personal and financial files off his computer onto a CD-R disc. The CD-R disc of these files eventually makes its way into the hands of the divorce lawyer’s receptionist. Don’t ask me how this happens or why she has the disc with her, but the lawyer’s receptionist accidentally leaves the disc at Hardbodies, a gym she works out at during lunch.

A middle-aged employee of the gym, Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), retrieves this disc found by the gym’s custodian. Chad immediately looks at the content of the disc on his computer. He automatically comes to the conclusion that he has stumbled upon classified information of utmost value to someone. He fills his co-worker Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) in on his discovery. Ironically, Linda has also begun seeing Katie’s lover Harry Pfarer. Harry is quite the womanizer as that is not even the cusp of the number of affairs he is currently having. Anyway, Chad and Linda decided to blackmail the owner of the disc that was found in the gym. After tracking down Osbourne Cox, they call him thinking that he would be genuinely concerned with the safe retrieval of the classified information found within the disc, and in turn, offer them a generous reward for their honesty and help. Linda was hoping any possible reward money could be used to pay for the cosmetic surgery she wants. They were both so dead wrong in their way of thinking. Chad eventually met with Osbourne who was not thrilled at all to be playing a game of blackmail. They picked the wrong guy to play this game with. Desperate, Linda takes the disc to the Russian embassy, falsely promising them that she can deliver more information. Chad, angry at the fact that Linda lied to the Russian embassy about their being more information, decides to break into Osbourne’s house as a final desperate measure to help Linda out. This where the proverbial sh#$ really hits the fan. If I managed to whet your appetite so far, then you will just have to give it a watch to witness the damage that develops from the movie’s intertwining stories that eventually all come full circle. It really is a small world after all. If you do not want to read about any potential spoilers, please skip down to the “Video” section of my review as to not ruin anything for yourself in regards to my next paragraph of conversation.

Burn After Reading starts out very slow. Perhaps if I was not reviewing this movie, I may have been tempted to turn it off after the first 20 minutes or so. To me, it is always a bad sign when you pick the Blu-ray player remote up this early on to determine how much viewing time is left. However, after reaching the first half-hour mark, the film really started to pick up and became quite whimsically interesting. I really should have known better from my experience with No Country For Old Men. I actually did not notice the next hour fly by as I was really into the movie and all the intertwining stories going on and then “Bam!” Out of nowhere the movie comes to a screeching halt, as all the active and blossoming stories get resolved in the background with onscreen characters just mildly talking about it. That same turn of events really turned me off in No Country For Old Men. Had it not been for one of the baddest villains in cinematic history, I may have never given No Country For Old Men another thought. While I enjoyed Burn After Reading, I really can never see myself going back for a second visit. I am not sure if this is a phenomenon that happens in all Coen Brothers’ movies or not as these are the only two I have ever seen. Maybe my readers can help me out with the answer to that one. If nothing else, I did get a bit of comic relief from Brad Pitt’s quirky character actions. My wife said she felt embarrassed for him, but I know that Brad Pitt was just bringing his character to life in the zany ways that only Brad Pitt can deliver. Long and short, it was definitely a different character role for Brad Pitt as I am so used to always seeing him in control.

Video

Universal Studios brings Burn After Reading to the Blu-ray format with a 1080P VC-1 video transfer presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The video presentation here is what’s to be expected from a Coen Brothers film. You can expect a thin layer of cinematic film grain throughout the feature presentation. The film grain is not intrusive, but I feel the need to warn Blu-ray purists who want the utmost clarity with no visible signs of heavy grain. Make no mistake here. You are watching a 35mm transfer for the most part that looks beautiful on the Blu-ray format. You still get the three-dimensional pop we all know and love, solid blacks, fine details and natural looking skin tones. In fact, you can see every pit and pore in the faces of actors. Like usual, this can be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon whom we are talking about. The film print is in perfect shape. I guess the only thing preventing me from giving this a higher video score is because of the film grain I did notice a few shots here and there that were not as sharp as I would have liked them to be. This is not a title that one would expect a demo-reference quality video transfer from but I stand firm in my assumption that one will find little reason to be disappointed here.

Audio

Universal Studios delivers yet again with another DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio surround track. Understandably so, since the main expectation of this comedic spy thriller would be the very crucial dialogue levels, I am very pleased to inform, that Universal delivers the goods with a very clear and intelligible track. This is so important because a Coen Brothers’ film like this survives on the merits of its dialogue track for its deliverance. I never found myself straining to make out any of the dialogue. Also, we have the wonderful score by Carter Burwell to enjoy throughout the film. Surprisingly, the low-end bass was thunderous at times in this DTS track. I say surprisingly because it was a comedy and I am so used to my subwoofer turning off for long periods at a time during comedic movie outings. The only thing that I was disappointed with was the under utilization of the rear channels. I would have liked to have heard more active engagement from them.

Special Features

After reviewing a batch of new Universal titles as of late, I guess you can say I have come to a expect a massive amount of special features being included on them. Unfortunately, that is not the case with Burn After Reading. Burn After Reading comes to the Blu-ray format with only three small featurettes and some BD-Live functionality to play around with. Happily, for me, all the special features are presented in High-Definition. That alone, allowed me to bump up the score a bit here. While we don’t have much to hang around here within the post-film watching special features department, I am pleased that it is at least in High-Definition. I should also point out that there is not even an audio commentary track included here, disappointingly. So let’s take a closer look of what is included here.

• Finding the Burn (HD) – This quick 6-minute featurette allows viewers a glimpse into the making of Burn After Reading from inspiration to the big screen.

• DC Insiders Run Amuck (HD) – Here we have a 12-minute look at the casting process of putting together an all-star cast to recreate the world of Washington, D.C.

• Welcome Back George (HD) – This 3-minute piece focuses on George Clooney as he returns for his third collaboration with the Coen Brothers.

• BD-Live – Access the BD-Live center through your Internet connected Blu-ray player and download bonus content, trailers and more. The BD-Live server for Burn After Reading was not available at the time of this writing. You can also explore My Scenes and collect your favorite clips from the movie and share them with your BD-Live buddies.

Final Thoughts

If you are a fan of the Coen Brothers’ body of work, then this goes without saying; you should pick up the Burn After Reading Blu-ray on its release day. If you are a fair-weather fan or unsure about some of their movies, then I would highly recommend a rental here to make sure this is worthy of repeat visits before laying down your hard-earned cash. The movie starts out slow, but quickly regains pace as the action and comedic elements align beautifully until the unfortunate happens as I described above. I guess you are either on one side of the fence or the other when you are talking about a Coen Brothers’ film. From my experience, it seems that there are diehard fans that seem to support any body of work from the Coen Brothers. You know who you are. If you are indeed one of these, then without a doubt I feel no hesitation in saying you will love the Coen Brothers’ latest offering on the Blu-ray format. This Blu-ray release features a cinematic film experience, an intelligible dialogue track, several Hi-Def goodies and a smart comedic spy-like thriller that is guaranteed to please all the Coen Brothers’ fans. For everyone else, please don’t overlook this spy comedy and at least give it a rental to see if it might be something you like because I don’t believe this one will cater to everyone’s taste like a good ole’ summer blockbuster would. Remember, when you go into things with no expectations, sometimes you may come out pleasantly surprised as a result. Bottom line…RECOMMENDED – Rent First!

I hope you enjoyed my review of the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading Blu-ray release. Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments below. I look forward to hearing feedback from my readers.

Burn After Reading gets released on Blu-ray December 23^rd. If you like what you read in the review above, please show your support for our site by clicking the shopping cart link below to order and save with Amazon’s Everyday Lowest Price Guarantee. Thanks!