“BURN AFTER READING”
Starring John Malkovich, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand
Released: Sept. 12, 2008

WATCH THE TRAILER

Hilarious with a brilliant cast, but makes no sense and is hard to follow.

I HARBOR A secret attraction to Brad Pitt.

I may not be able to remember anything besides "Burn After Reading" that I have seen him in (besides a hilarious episode of "Friends" back when he was married to Jennifer Aniston), but does it matter? He's just kind of hot, plus, you know, he cares about the environment and children and stuff.

Pitt was one thing that drew me to this movie, the latest by the Oscar-winning Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan; the other thing was the fact that it was supposed to be about spies and the CIA and secret CIA information and it sounded awesome.

As it turned out, the plot was so incredibly convoluted that I'm not exactly sure I can really explain what the movie ended up being about, or what the point of it was. But holy crap, it was funny.

When CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is demoted to analyst, he decides to write a memoir of his experiences working for the CIA.

His wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), secretly wants a divorce so she can freely continue her relationship with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), who advises her to wait on the divorce since he’s in relationships with about five other people at the same time, including his wife.

Ignoring his advice, Katie goes to her lawyer, who tells her to get herself acquainted with all of her husband’s finances. She copies every file on his computer, including not only finances but also a first draft of his memoir, onto a disk.

Somehow, the disk ends up on the floor of the women’s locker room at Hardbodies Gym, the workplace of Chad (Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand).

Linda is in the process of reinventing herself, which, in her mind, and much to the dismay of the gym’s manager who is in love with her, requires four cosmetic surgeries and a lot of online dating. With the gym’s health plan not willing to cover the procedures, Linda is desperately in search of money.

When she and Chad discover the disk and what’s on it, they decide that they could somehow blackmail someone into giving them money in return for it, and thus the craziness begins.

The plot is so strange and involving so many people and so many affairs and craziness that it’s nearly impossible to follow closely. You might ask who cares about plot with a cast like this one, but I'm not sure I agree with that. I think you have to have some sort of believable storyline to constitute a good movie.

Yes, "Burn After Reading" is hilarious. Every line and facial expression is perfect, but ultimately they seem to achieve nothing more than a whole lot of laughs. No matter how many fantastic actors and actresses you gather together, they don't necessarily make a film. The story has to back them up at least a little bit.

I did laugh. A lot. I barely stopped laughing for the whole movie. I definitely enjoyed it while I was watching it, and everything made sense as it was happening, but afterward I realized that it actually didn't make any sense at all.

It's like a dream I had once where one of my friends was a rabbit, and she lived in a hole in my yard, and my other friend brought over her hiccuping puppy to help find my rabbit friend while I lost a spelling bee. This all seemed perfectly logical to me as I was dreaming it, but then I woke up and realized that none of that actually made any sense at all.

"Burn After Reading" is definitely hilarious, but it almost seemed like the writers came up with a bunch of funny lines and then came up with a random plot to accommodate all of them. Maybe that would be a fun creative writing exercise or something, but I don't think it's a great way to make a movie.

So I would recommend seeing this movie, laughing at it and really enjoying it, and then completely forgetting about it afterward so you don't end up wondering why on earth you just paid an arm and a leg to see that.

Or, only see the middle third just to experience the awesomeness that is Brad Pitt as a goofy gym instructor.

“Burn After Reading” is currently playing at the Goodrich Savoy 16, 232 W. Burwash, Savoy, and the Beverly 18, 910 Meijers Drive, Champaign.

“Burn After Reading” AT A GLANCE

• Starring: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich
• Directed by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• Genre: Comedy, Crime
• Rated: R
• Runtime: 96 min.
• Release date: Sept. 12, 2008
• Summary (from IMDb): A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it.