You half-know what to expect, stylistically, from a movie like this: a liberal dollop of Coen Brothers’ dry humor, dripping down a seemingly (but not actually) complicated plot. I personally thought that the characters were funny, especially Brad Pitt and George Clooney, but i think that more critical reviewers were less impressed, especially in light of the Coen Brothers’ ouevre as a whole. Here is what had to say at The Quietus:

It feels like the directors have asked each member of their cast to, “you know, just be yourself, sort of,” and to sleepwalk along with them. This may explain why most of the performances are sometimes funny, mostly flat, while conversely, this effect works in favor of the actor with arguably the best chops, John Malkovich, who reaffirms that he is more interesting and humorous sitting silently in a chair than the most crafted witticism a scriptwriter can dream up.

As entertaining as the Coen Brothers can be, this seems to be a common theme with reviewers—they want to know what point of all these characters with their half-baked plans and idiotic ambitions is. Skullduggery for its own sake? Because that is what human
nature is all about, for them. The Village Voice‘s J. Hoberman says the same thing, more or less:

hich, in this case, it does. Burn After Reading maps a world of spies, cheats, and schemers, with everyone under some sort of surveillance and every dog chasing its own tail. The conspiracy here is one of dunces, or as Osborne exclaims upon surprising one intruder in his basement: “You’re part of a league of morons!” Each of the five principals is a broadly played, dim-witted grotesque wearing his or her own distinctively stricken kabuki mask.

I haven’t yet seen No Country for Old Men, and it seems that without seeing that you can’t really get a handle on the highs and lows of the Coen Brothers career; that is to say, Burn After Reading can only be understood as the product of the same filmmakers that made Old Country with their particular skills, tastes, with their unique cinematic idiolect.

That’s fair enough, but I suppose the Coen Brothers, if what the reviewers says is true, have a healthy disdain for what their fan base wants. They don’t feel that they have to always make “serious” oscar winning films, and they don’t always have to elevate black comedy to a high art form either–they are content with just churning out scripts that they think are amusing, and getting some really good and famous actors to act in them. And then they, like most artists, move and start on a new project.

But really, I think it’s not a bad way to spend 2 hours. Brad Pitt and John Malkovich are really funny…even though they both do it in a fairly no brainer type of way, Pitt playing the bumbling meathead that he’s always had in him, and using a bunch of small tics and gestures to make his character interesting. Malkovich is something different altogether–he is still this “version” of himself, with all the “what the fuck” bitterness that we have come to love.
Its awesome just listening to that guy enunciate the words “what the fuck” because no one can do it as felicitously as he can, at least in the English language.