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OFCS Rating: 88% Fresh |
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| "Executed in a divinely goofy way, this 'anything goes' Coen Brothers movie turns the stuffy and overly serious spy genre on its ear." |
| ReelTalk Movie Reviews |
| A. J. Hakari |
3.5/5 | "Fails to live up to the high expectations involuntarily set by such reputable talent." |
| Cut Print Review |
| Anders Wotzke |
| "chuckle away, by all means - but also watch this with open eyes, and you might just begin to suspect that the absurd collateral damage on show here is a worrying reflection of the world that we all live in, where the dumb lead the dumber." |
| Eye for Film |
| Anton Bitel |
3.5/5 | "even in the clichéd arena of affairs of the heart, the Coens are capable of something subversive, and quite special." |
| Filmcritic.com |
| Bill Gibron |
2.5/4 | "An anti-conspiracy lampoon of conspiracy thrillers, the Coens' Burn After Reading paints its floundering Washington inhabitants as intractably or even fatally stupid." |
| Slant Magazine |
| Bill Weber |
A- | "A back-stabbing, double-crossing, exhaustively absurd caper with pitch-black comedic enhancements, "Burn" is a beauty; a charged symphony of impulsive idiots left to their own devices." |
| BrianOrndorf.com |
| Brian Orndorf |
B+ | "The writing/directing team of Joel and Ethan Coen create a laugh-a-minute black comedy that pokes fun at America's surveillance-dominated existence, plastic surgery desires, and all out greed." |
| ColeSmithey.com |
| Cole Smithey |
6/10 | "Ozzie (John Malkovich) embodies the problem of the CIA, of the "intelligence community," which is that it reacts to data, then fashions a story about it to comport with the reaction." |
| PopMatters |
| Cynthia Fuchs |
3/4 | "A pleasant return to the silliness of the Coens' earlier pictures from the stiltedness of their latter-day offerings (No Country' excepted)." |
| rec.arts.movies.reviews |
| David N. Butterworth |
2.5/4 | "...ultimately fits quite comfortably within the Coen brothers' various comedic endeavors..." |
| Reel Film Reviews |
| David Nusair |
A- | "Goofy fluff spy comedy that revolves around a missing CIA memoir." |
| Ozus' World Movie Reviews |
| Dennis Schwartz |
| "This parody from the Coen Brothers is merely easy cynicism." |
| ReelTalk Movie Reviews |
| Donald J. Levit |
| "A minor work on the Coen brothers' résumé is still better than, or as good as, most other filmmakers' best." |
| DustinPutman.com |
| Dustin Putman |
3/5 | "Una disparatada comedia que le toma el pelo a la (des)inteligencia norteamericana, de la mano de un puñado de personajes absurdos animados por un estupendo elenco." |
| Uruguay Total |
| Enrique Buchichio |
B- | "A lesser Coen work, a negligible dark comedy that will be remembered alongside, say, The Ladykillers rather than with, say, The Big Lebowski." |
| EricDSnider.com |
| Eric D. Snider |
2.5/4 | "The pacing isn't quite as screwy as the premise and it winds up with the occasional lag while it chases too much of any particular subplot" |
| eFilmCritic.com |
| Erik Childress |
| "Gratuitous stuff, flat and desperate" |
| CinePassion |
| Fernando F. Croce |
2.5/4 | "The Coens' brand of irreverent chuckles propels Burn After Reading as a stylistic and sassy sideshow for unredeemable rogues on the road to surrealistic scrutiny." |
| Movie Eye |
| Frank Ochieng |
B | "Isn't much more than an extravagantly complicated joke, [but] it's a pretty funny one, with plenty of those mordantly humorous jolts the [Coens] are so good at." |
| One Guy's Opinion |
| Frank Swietek |
4/5 | "A clever black comedy that pokes fun at some of the obsessions of our frantic times including surveillance, cosmetic surgery, and physical fitness." |
| Spirituality and Practice |
| Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat |
3/4 | "Burn After Reading likely won't be a major Oscar contender for 2009, but that doesn't mean it won't offer a hell of a good time in theaters toward the end of 2008." |
| ReelViews |
| James Berardinelli |
3/5 | "It constantly teeters on the brink of falling apart, but it’s held together by the sheer will of its talented cast, all of whom seem to relish the opportunity to get a little goofy." |
| Q Network Film Desk |
| James Kendrick |
3.5/4 | "Those crazy Coen Brothers veer a hard left with a humorous and cautionary tale of lust and revenge." |
| Palo Alto Weekly |
| Jeanne Aufmuth |
8/10 | "Brothers Joel and Ethan Coen could direct a movie like Burn After Reading in their sleep, and I don't mean that as a slight." |
| Window to the Movies |
| Jeffrey Chen |
7/10 | "All in all though, fun times. I look forward to revisiting it again in the future, like most Coen bros movies." |
| JoBlo's Movie Emporium |
| JoBlo |
| "Our enjoyment of 'Burn After Reading' stems from watching an A-list ensemble behave in a shamelessly goofy manner." |
| ReelTalk Movie Reviews |
| John P. McCarthy |
3/5 | "aristotehniki diaheirisi mias fainomenika polymplegmenis plokis, tin opoia ksepsahnizoyn me haraktiristiki anesi kai aksiozileyti oikonomia, ksediplonontas me pliros sobaro antikataskopiko styl ap' ti skinothesia kai ti fotografia, mehri to montaz kai ti" |
| Movies for the Masses |
| Joseph Proimakis |
3/5 | "It's like a spy thriller, but with no spies and no thrills." |
| Cinerina |
| Karina Montgomery |
| "It's surely old-hat by now to note the writer/directors' pervasive condescension and smugness, a criticism I don't think always holds true, especially when the Brothers more fully explore, e.g. The Man Who Wasn't There, their no less ubiquitous spi" |
| UGO |
| Keith Uhlich |
1.0/4.0 | "Burn Before Watching." |
| MovieCrypt.com |
| Kevin A. Ranson |
3.5/5 | "It's not the best film in the Coen Brothers' library, but like almost any one of their films, it's better than most movies out there." |
| 7M Pictures |
| Kevin Carr |
3.5/4 | "The Coen brothers' funniest movie since The Big Lebowski." |
| Montreal Film Journal |
| Kevin N. Laforest |
4.5/5 | "... a fun ride down the roller coaster of the dark side of human nature as only the Coens can explore it." |
| Cinematical |
| Kim Voynar |
B | "J.K. Simmons makes his character's teflon tactics a witty criticism and his line readings are like hilarious subtitles to the action." |
| Reeling Reviews |
| Laura Clifford |
| "The Coens do comedy with the same level of intensity as they do drama, and in Burn that comes through in the mock-thriller atmosphere they create..." |
| Flick Filosopher |
| MaryAnn Johanson |
3/4 | "This is the sort of thing the Coens do best: mixing sweet and sour to twist your emotions on a dime." |
| Aisle Seat |
| Mike McGranaghan |
B | "Another Coens twisty, genre-tweaking movie filled with deadpan delivery by characters who are venal, dumb, or both, plus some shockingly grisly violence." |
| Beliefnet |
| Nell Minow |
B+ | "The surface foolishness of the Coens' latest feels like a carefully designed bit of misdirection aimed at masking another tale of lonely, aimless people." |
| Lessons of Darkness |
| Nick Schager |
4/5 | "Influenciados pelos mesmos clichês que comprometem tantas produções do estilo, os próprios personagens de Queime Depois de Ler parecem não saber diferenciá-los da realidade." |
| Cinema em Cena |
| Pablo Villaca |
5/5 | "In the end. "Burn After Reading" is a film that is essentially about nothing much at all but it goes about achieving that nothing in such audaciously funny ways that it turns out to be something after all." |
| eFilmCritic.com |
| Peter Sobczynski |
3.5/5 | "A low-key comedy with a high-powered cast ... it's a bit too mannered, but it's also thoroughly hilarious" |
| Shadows on the Wall |
| Rich Cline |
5/5 | "A beautifully inhuman spy farce in which nobody amounts to anything more than their loopy desires." |
| eFilmCritic.com |
| Rob Gonsalves |
B | "Burn After Reading aims for nothing but a few subversive giggles, which it delivers handily over the course of a quick 96 minutes." |
| Flipside Movie Emporium |
| Rob Vaux |
C+ | "Funny in spots, but bloody uneven, and there is nobody to root for when most of the characters are self-centered fools." |
| Laramie Movie Scope |
| Robert Roten |
8/10 | "A stellar cast and the usual percolating plot of the Coens combine in one of their most entertaining crime comedies to date. Funny stuff with Clooney, McDormand and Malkovich frame a breakthrough comedic performance by Brad Pitt." |
| Monsters and Critics |
| Ron Wilkinson |
B | "... one of the Coens' more playful projects, much lighter and significantly slighter than No Country for Old Men or Fargo..." |
| Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
| Sean Axmaker |
C+ | "It’s morbidly absurdist, thoroughly pointless, and can certainly be funny at times." |
| Decent Films Guide |
| Steven D. Greydanus |
7/10 | "It's not the contrived plot that matters here, it's the execution - and the Coens are masters of broadly drawn characters and stylized visuals." |
| SSG Syndicate |
| Susan Granger |
10/10 | "Easily the funniest film by Joel and Ethan Coen since The Big Lebowski...feels more like their old stuff than anything else they've done in a decade." |
| Antagony & Ecstasy |
| Tim Brayton |
| "Click here to see review" |
| Wolf Entertainment Guide |
| William Wolf |
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OFCS Rating: 88% Fresh |
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