Flick Check: Burn After Reading: A confused outing from the Coen brothers. It starts out as almost a screwball farce, and works decently as such, making you think it might be going down the path towards Raising Arizona. Then it takes a darker turn and tries to make it to Fargo. In the end it doesn't really get anywhere.
It has its share of comic moments, as you'd expect from the Coens, but there's a kitchen sink feel to the events and some scenes that don't clearly have a point and the ending is rather abrupt, as if they just kind of ran out of ideas and wrapped it up so they could move on to something else.
One thing I did take away from this is the Brad Pitt is a fine actor. At his age, he is slightly miscast as the half-wit pretty-boy, but he pulled it off very well. He's done some very good work and shown a lot of range in films that haven't pulled in big numbers (The Assassination of Jesse James..., Snatch, for example), and deserves better than his poster boy reputation.
Don't pay any money to see Burn After Reading, but if it comes on and you're looking for distraction, it's fair way to spend 90 minutes.
