I'm a late bloomer as far as Coen brothers' movies go. Never got around to seeing too much of their stuff when it came out with the exception of "O Brother Where Art Thou?". I suppose it was the same deal with "Burn After Reading". Despite the name drop, there wasn't much that really got me to go see it in theaters. I finally got the chance to tonight and it was a fun movie, but no masterpiece. The whole story is a somewhat complex string of relationships centering around a stolen disc believed to be state secrets. I didn't bother to try and solve it before the movie was over and found I enjoyed it much more as it simply unfolded before me.
There's quite a cast in this flick and I only wish they all got ample opportunities at screen time. Because the cast was so large, most of them don't get more than twenty minutes or so of screen time. Shotwise, the Coen brothers throw in their fair share of interesting frames. I found the pacing to be a little too slow for my taste. I know they have a penchant for very deliberate filmmaking, but it could have been sped up a bit. Otherwise everything else was up to snuff.
One of the things that bugged me a bit about this movie was that it was labeled as a black/dark comedy. They're one of my favorite types of movies, but it took too long to start introducing the dark humor. Most of my laughs up until the hour mark were for Brad Pitt's character. i thought the introduction of the "**** chair" was pretty novel, but ultimately all the humor based off of death and despair didn't show up until the last twenty minutes of the film.
"Burn After Reading" is a well rounded film. It doesn't make any big mistakes and it does a few good things. That's the standard coming from the Coens I suppose, but it didn't wow me. Expecting a high standard when I find out who's directing something is putting the horse before the cart, but when you're used to the horse pulling a golden cart...it's a little weird when it pulls a silver one.