Understanding the setup is key to enjoying this film. Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) does not take kindly to his reassignment at the CIA. In a rant he quits and announces to his wife, Dr. Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton) that he resigned, as opposed to being fired, and will now write his memoirs. Her unspoken thought (though clearly written on her face) is who would care? 

Kooky, off-kilter characters sum up the essence of Burn After Reading, a hallmark of Coen brothers films. Harry (George Clooney) says he loves his wife, a popular author of children’s books. Harry’s obsession with sex is first shown as he sets up an Internet date with Linda (Frances McDormand), a fitness trainer at a local gym. Add this to the affair he is already having and the discovery of Harry’s do it yourself project he’s building in his basement, and you have a mind you can’t quite describe. 

Linda and Chad (Brad Pitt) find a computer disk at the gym, which they think contains top secret data. Their attempt to blackmail its owner, who turns out to be Osborne, doesn’t go well for them. They try to sell it to the Russians. Chad is an airhead opportunist, and Linda wants a chunk of money so she can have nearly head to toe plastic surgery because as she says, “I’ve gotten about as far as this body can take me.” 

We thoroughly enjoyed the twisted humor and the irony of the film. Burn After Reading does not have the wrenching madness of the Coens’ “No Country for Old Men”, but it does have a good touch of the zaniness of “Fargo.” We would agree that the film is part of an “idiot trilogy,” as described by the Coens to compliment “O Brother, Where Art Thou” and “Intolerable Cruelty.” 

If there is any message here it’s that the law of unintended consequences is totally unpredictable.