Friday, October 31, 2008

I Feel “Burned” After Watching

Stuart stood there waiting for me while I was in the restroom. When I came out, he told me he heard a few people walking past him and commenting that they “felt cheated”. Viola! They had voiced out my opinion. 

“Burn After Reading” should be burnt, really. I thought it was a comedy and was prepared to laugh till I cry, but I hadn’t prepare myself to be “shocked till I want to cry”.

I did have some hysterical moments, although they ended along with Brad Pitt’s premature demise in the movie.

George Clooney’s paranoia gave me the creeps, but his “childishness” probably tickled me more.

But nothing beats how ridiculous the movie ends. Actually I should have got the hint of the crappiness of the movie when the CIA head instructed Brad Pitt’s body to be burnt and disposed of, to the loud gasps of the two girls sitting at the pew next to me, along with mine. Gasp!

My disbelief rose when the two jokers actually drove to the Russian Embassy to trade off some “classified information” for money! I mean, Russian Embassy? Seeing Vladimir Putin’s portrait hanging on the wall is like the “icing on the cake” if I may put it this way. 

By the time the movie ended, I was totally disillusioned.

I had so made up my mind to watch this movie that I went all the way to see which cinema suited our time that day and went forth. At one point, I was slightly swayed by another show “Nights in Rodanthe”, but still I didn’t give up Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

“Burn After Reading” is all about expletives that replace the function of punctuation marks and mid-sentence pauses in most of the conversations, multi-triangle relationships and affairs and bizarre events that somehow found relevance with each other with an ultimate ending – to raise funds for a gym employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) to pay for her extensive cosmetic surgery. So much for self-esteem!

Doing my best to be optimistic about this movie, I found consolation in the actors’ and actresses’ portrayal of those characters. Tilda Swinton has a convincing depiction of a “cold stuck-up bitch” as her lover’s wife describes to be while John Malkovich somehow manages to get me feeling he deserves the demotion more than anyone else does in the movie, not even the useless head of CIA. 

As for Brad Pitt, well, let’s just say he tickles me whenever he’s on-screen. So does George Clooney on certain scenes. As I’m writing this, I recall a movie review that said “Brad Pitt saved the movie”. Guess I see where this person’s coming from now.

I’m not even sure if I would recommend anyone going to watch this movie. But I guess, if it’s purely for entertainment, why not?

Just make sure that you’re prepared to watch something that just doesn’t make any sense at all.

So in a sense, it is a comedy after all.