23 March 2009

Burn After Watching

... Or maybe even before watching. Yes, in the weekend I finally watched "Burn After Reading" and I must admit I was rather disappointed.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney were particularly good in their roles as Chad and Harry... my personal favourite scene of the entire movie was of Chad running on the treadmill with his iPod, swinging his arms about in the air enthusiastically. He played the good-looking, dumb guy flawlessly.

Likewise, Clooney was hysterical in the bedroom/gun/stairs/knife scene, which was disturbing but hilarious. He's got those big brown eyes with the grey eyebrows that express so much more than his actions ever can.

That aside, John Malkovich as Osborne pissed me off, with his unnecessary overuse of the word "fuck", his uninteresting and cold wife (Tilda Swinton), and I guess the fact that his air of unlikeableness (yes, that's a word) seemed all too genuine. He seemed like a right toss.

Um, as for the movie itself... what the hell was it actually supposed to be about? It seemed like they were all divorcing each other on the sly, obsessed with internet dating and reinvention, disposing of bodies in the Chesapeake Bay... none of which seemed to bear any significance to anything else. It was all very strange. I did enjoy the portrayal of the CIA's questionable handling of the entire situation, "burn the bodies, get him on the first plane to Venezuela, and pay for the surgeries." but I grew confused when the end titles appeared and I really had no idea what the point of the film was. Surely that wasn't it?!

But it was, and I'm still baffled. Comments shedding light on this what I might like to refer to as a cinematic flop are welcome.

1 comment: