The Burn After Reading podcast
Good podcast. I will admit upfront that I still like the movie, but I understand where the guys are coming from.
Interestingly I put it in the same category as Blood Simple, which ARon also disliked. both are without "good" characters and are IMHO send-ups of the genre more than about plot.
When I first saw Blood Simple I thought "Wow, a noir thriller in which all of the standard characters are not very bright and fuck everything up!" Burn After Reading is a send-up of movies like Tinker,Taylor, Soldier, Spy. What if the main characters were not hyper-efficient secret agents with steel-trap minds? You know, normal people who are just good enough at their jobs to not get fired (until their problem drinking becomes an issue).
And this movie, as stated, is not set in the end-of-history uni-polar era of the 90s, not even in the everyone-is-out-to-get-us paranoia of the post-9/11 world but in the look-how-bad-the-Iraq-intelligence-was world of 2007-08 when it was reinforced to us how subject the intelligence agencies were to ideology, tunnel vision, pressure from higher-ups who wanted the assessments to come out just so, and a fair amount of cover-your-ass mentality.
Anyway, it hit my sense of humor just right. And by the way, the worst Cohen Brothers film is The Ladykillers. Unwatchable.
Interestingly I put it in the same category as Blood Simple, which ARon also disliked. both are without "good" characters and are IMHO send-ups of the genre more than about plot.
When I first saw Blood Simple I thought "Wow, a noir thriller in which all of the standard characters are not very bright and fuck everything up!" Burn After Reading is a send-up of movies like Tinker,Taylor, Soldier, Spy. What if the main characters were not hyper-efficient secret agents with steel-trap minds? You know, normal people who are just good enough at their jobs to not get fired (until their problem drinking becomes an issue).
And this movie, as stated, is not set in the end-of-history uni-polar era of the 90s, not even in the everyone-is-out-to-get-us paranoia of the post-9/11 world but in the look-how-bad-the-Iraq-intelligence-was world of 2007-08 when it was reinforced to us how subject the intelligence agencies were to ideology, tunnel vision, pressure from higher-ups who wanted the assessments to come out just so, and a fair amount of cover-your-ass mentality.
Anyway, it hit my sense of humor just right. And by the way, the worst Cohen Brothers film is The Ladykillers. Unwatchable.
Comments
My vote for worst Coen Brothers movie goes to Hail Caesar. I'm convinced that you have to go into that movie with deep knowledge of and love for old Hollywood to get anything out of it.