ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

HOW DO you follow a film like No Country For Old Men? The Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, manage it effortlessly with their breathless screwball spy spoof Burn After Reading.

A cast of A-list Oscar winners really let their hair down in a film that almost feels like a pantomime version of a Bourne blockbuster. Supremely silly and very entertaining, it represents the Coen brothers in holiday mood.

Unfolding at a breakneck speed, Burn After Reading has a convoluted, complex plot that fits neatly into place. Veteran CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is informed that he is surplus to requirements. Hurt and angry he decides to retaliate by writing his tell-all memoirs.

His icy wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is already plotting to leave him for sleazy, womanising federal marshal Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). Then a computer disc of Osborne’s memoirs falls into the hands of naive fitness instructor Chad (Brad Pitt) and fellow Hardbodies Fitness colleague Linda Litzke (Frances McDorman).

Linda is desperate to find some money to fund a variety of cosmetic surgery procedures. The dim-witted duo decide to try a little blackmail and that is the first of many mistakes.

A jaw-dropping farce, Burn After Reading takes lethal potshots at the intelligence community, the dumb average citizen and a society enthralled by wealth, celebrity and surface appearances.

It might appear a sour, cynical film were it not for the quicksilver plotting, deft wit and amazing performances, topped by Brad Pitt in a great comic turn as someone who is definitely not the smartest dumbbell in the gym.

Nationwide release

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins
Screenwriters: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Certificate: 15
Running time: 96 mins
Country: USA
Year: 2008