Movie Review - "Burn After Reading"

We were drawn to this movie by the cast - George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Marvel, David Rasche, JK Simmons and Jeffrey DeMunn. However, this seriously talented cast has been asked to act like cartoon characters in this tale of desperation, mutual suspicion and vigorous musical beds, all in the name of laughs that only sporadically ensue. Everything here has been dialed up to an almost grotesquely exaggerated extent, making for a film that feels misjudged from the opening scene and thereafter only occasionally hits the right note. Needless to say we were somewhat disappointed [ We give it only 2-Stars]

PLOT DESCRIPTION: Osbourne Cox is a CIA analyst who quits his job at the agency after being demoted ostensibly because of his drinking problem. He then decides to write a memoir about his life in the CIA. His wife, Katie Cox wants to divorce Osbourne and, at the counsel of her divorce lawyer, she copies many of his personal and financial files off his computer onto an optical disk. Katie's lover is Treasury agent Harry Pfarrer, who is actually played well by George Clooney. The disc eventually finds its way to Hardbodies, a workout gym, where an employee of the gym, Chad Feldheimer, played by Brad Pitt, obtains the disc from the gym's custodian and ascertains that it contains classified government information. Along with his fellow employee Linda Litzke, played by Frances McDormand, he intends to use the disk to blackmail Osbourne. From here it gets quite bazare. The movie ends by returning to the CIA's headquarters, where an official, David Rasche, and his director, J.K. Simmons, are trying to sort out what happened: Chad is dead, Ted is dead, Osbourne is in a vegetative state and dying after being shot by an agent while attacking Ted, Harry has been arrested trying to board a flight to Venezuela (but the CIA wants to let him leave anyway so he's out of their hair), and Linda has agreed to cooperate in exchange for the CIA financing her plastic surgery. The baffled CIA agents then decide that they have learned their lesson: to never repeat whatever it is that they did in this case; though they are still not clear what it is they did.