My Day: “Burn After Reading”

I turned it off after it was half over.  not because it was a bad film, but because it was really a worthless film.  A CIA investigative agent gets demoted, and quits the agency.  He and his wife are having problems, but she has a boy friend, who has another wife.  So that’s one complication, especially as the agent doesn’t know about the boyfriend (although he knows the boyfriend).

In the meantime, the agent decides to write his memoirs.  It goes on a computer disc, which he loses and which is found at a local gym, where two of the people who find it decide, first, to return it (once the owner is identified), and second, to return it but ask for a reward, and, three (after several unpleasant communications with the agent) decide to ask for even more…….

This is where I quit.

But what is extraordinary about this film (which maybe you never really heard of) is the cast, which includes George Clooney and John Malkovich, and Frances McDormand, and Tilda Swain and Brad Pitt.  All those folks – but the film is just plain silly.

Yes, Malkovich is the agent, Swain his wife, Clooney her boyfriend (sorta), and Pitt and McDorman the blackmailers.  Bet you could have guessed that.