First Look at the Coen Brothers’ “Burn After Reading”

What do you do after you’ve made a movie like “No Country For Old Men” that turns out to be one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year and the front runner for the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars at the Academy Awards?

Well, if you’re Joel Coen and Ethan Coen you follow it up with a dark comedy called “Burn After Reading” starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and Frances McDormand that focuses on the world of the CIA, physical fitness in Washington, D.C., and internet dating.
 
Hey, I can’t make this stuff up…

The Coen Brothers may be in the news for the work they did on “No Country” but buzz for their next film is already building. With an all-star, A list cast, the directors were bound to garner some attention even if it weren’t for the Oscar buzz surrounding them these days. And much like when they followed “Barton Fink” with “The Hudsucker Proxy,” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There” with “Intolerable Cruelty,” the brothers are following up the darkness of “No Country” with the comedy of “Burn After Reading.”

In “Burn After Reading” Malkovich will play Ozzie Cox, a former CIA agent whose soon-to-be ex-wife (Tilda Swinton) steals a disc containing his memoirs and accidentally leaves it at the gym where it is found by two trainers, Chad and Linda (Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand), who believe they can use the info to blackmail Cox. George Clooney will play a friend of the Cox’s who starts to have an affair with Cox’s wife and later on Linda as he starts to get caught up in the situation between the trainers and the CIA. It is said that both Pitt and Clooney will be playing two of the dumbest characters of their careers.

I personally think it sounds off-the-wall funny. Coen Brother films are almost always enjoyable, the comedies most of all. With the cast they have assembled I don’t think they can help but get a good show out of what is said to be a very funny script.

Principal photography ended in November, but a release date has not yet been set.

Click the link below to check out some of the first images from the film and from the set.