"Burn After Reading": or better still, burn before reading

Three days after watching the execrable O Brother, Where Art Thou, the song "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" is still in my head.  My friend suggests that we add to my woes with Burn After Reading.

"I saw part of it before," I tell him.  "I walked out of the theater when something inexcusably horrible happened, turning it from a comedy iinto a monstrosity!"

"Give it a try," he says.  "Watch it all the way through before making a decision."

If I watch with him, there will be cuddling.  If I don't, probably not.  So here goes.

If you want to skip there whole thing and go directly to the butts and dicks, here are some links to:

Nude photos of Brad Pitt

Nude photos of Dermot Mulroney

Burn After Reading (2008) is a Coen Brothers "comedy" about a lot of old, bald, ugly guys in suits who have offices in Washington, DC.  Most have  jobs dealing with government secrets, but there's also a divorce lawyer, a plastic surgeon, and a guy who used to be a Greek Orthodox priest but now runs a gym.  I can't tell them apart, but according to the IMDB, they're played by John Malkovich, Richard Jenkins, David Rasche, J. K. Simmons, Olek Krupa, Michael Countryman, J.R. Horne, Hamilton Clancy, and Armand Schultz. 

I'm going to use the actors' names.  It will be easier to keep track of who's who.

State Secrets agent John Malkovich, who resigns from the State Secrets agency  and writes his memoirs.  Will this be like "The Prisoner," where a secret agent resigns and is sent to the Island?  "We want in-formation."

Nope, his memoirs don't actually contain any classified information.  

Meanwhile his wife is having an affair with fellow State Secrets agent George Clooney

In preparation for asking for a divorce, she copies all of Malhovich's financial information, plus his memoirs, onto a computer disk.  She give it to her lawyer, whose secretary loses it at the gym.

Where it is found by two conniving gym employees, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand, who I always confuse with Frances Sternhagen, Cliff's mother on Cheers.   They think it contains government secrets, and blackmail Malkovich for its safe return.  When he balks, they try to sell it to the Russians.

Aha, finally we get to the protagonists!  At least the two that are pushing the blackmail plot.

Why are they committing this act of treason, the only crime other than aggravated homicide that can get them the death penalty?  Well, Sternhagen wants money for liposuction for her saggy arm and belly fat.  Even though her doctor tells her that those areas will respond to exercise.  

And she works at a gym.

Pitt  is just an idiot.

Did I mention that Sternhagen also happens to be dating  Clooney, the guy having an affair with Malkovich, the man she's blackmailing?  Do all State Secrets agents go to the same gym?

Sneaking around the house looking for more government secrets,for some reason, Pitt accidentally encounters Clooney, who thinks he's the man that's been following him (in another plotline). 

Caution: horrible plot twist ahead::  Clooney kills him!  WTF?  You can't kill the protagonist, ever, and certainly not halfway through the way through the movie.  How can he have his complications, crisis, denoument, and conclusion?  There's nothing left for the movie to do!  

But it goes on. We switch protagonists -- now it's Clooney.   Sternhagen (who he is dating), complains about her missing friend.     Clooney doesn't realize that he killed the friend, so he agrees to help look for him.  Wait -- wasn't Brad Pitt wearing a gym uniform?  And Sternhagen works at the gym.  How hard is it to figure out?

Malkovich, meanwhile, believes that Sternhagen's boss is the blackmailer, and kills him.

We adjourn to some old, ugly guys sitting around talking about what happened next. It's complicated, but it ends up with with Malkovich  in a coma, Clooney in Venezuela, and Sternhagen agreeing to keep quiet if they pay for her liposuction.

Wait -- the first rule of moviemaking -- show, don't tell.  It's like watching The Wizard of Oz, all the way up to where Dorothy and her companions reach the Emerald City, then adjourning to Dorothy telling Aunt Em "So we went to the witch's castle, with lots of adventures on the way, and in the end we defeated her."

Terrible way to end a terrible movie.

Gay content:  

A tiny bit of beefcake, the rather muscular arms and shoulders of one of the guys Sternhagen has sex with.  Clooney and Pitt are fully clothed throughout.  Coming Up Daisy, the romantic comedy that Sternhagen brings her dates to, stars Dermot Mulroney, but he's fully clothed, too.

One homophobic slur.

One racist stereotype.

Brad Pitt's character is probably gay, but nothing is ever said.  He just fails to express any interest in women.

But at least I got some cuddling out of the deal.