At the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Arlington, Va., analyst Osborne Cox arrives for a top-secret meeting. Unfortunately for Cox, the secret is soon out: he is being ousted. Cox does not take the news particularly well and returns to his Georgetown home to work on his memoirs and his drinking, not necessarily in that order. His wife Katie is dismayed, though not particularly surprised; she is already well into an illicit affair with Harry Pfarrer, a married federal marshal, and sets about making plans to leave Cox for Harry. Elsewhere in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and seemingly worlds apart, Hardbodies Fitness Centers employee Linda Litzke can barely concentrate on her work. She is consumed with her life plan for extensive cosmetic surgery, and confides her mission to can-do colleague Chad Feldheimer. Linda is all but oblivious to the fact that the gym's manager Ted Treffon pines for her even as she arranges dates via the Internet with other men. When a computer disc containing material for the CIA analyst's memoirs accidentally falls into the hands of Linda and Chad, the duo are intent on exploiting their find. As Ted frets, "No good can come of this," events spiral out of everyone's and anyone's control, in a cascading series of darkly hilarious encounters.

The Coen brothers seem to have two types of movies they do, the offbeat humorous comedy and the more serious drama and caper type of film. So if you are one of those people first exposed to the Coen's via their Oscar winning No Country for Old Men last year this might be a little shock for the system as this clearly falls into their off beat comedic kind of film. Honestly when the Coen's are at their best it is when they are doing the more serious drama and caper type of films but that is not to say they can't pull of a hilarious crazy comedy like the do with Burn After Reading because the film is hilarious, surprising and just all around entertaining beginning to end. And while it will likely not earn them a second Oscar the film is definitely a must see because of how funny and entertaining it ends up being.

What makes the story so much fun and fantastic is two fold. The first thing that makes this movie so good is the story, it has such a simple but complex at the same time of story that draws you in. A dimwitted gym employee finds a disk in the locker room that looks to contain highly classified secrets and decides to try and get a reward or blackmail for it which is pretty straight forward and simple but in reality its not that simple as the disk does not contain anything that classified and leads to a massive conclusion of paranoia, mistaken identities, and quite a few jaw dropping surprises. That’s the beauty of the film something that should be so simple is not and it leads to a fantastic ending that makes the movie so very satisfying.

The second thing that makes the movie so much fun an enjoyable is the fantastic cast that the Coen's managed to assemble. Each plays a vital role and each gives quite the incredible performance. Whether it be George Clooney's neurotic, sex crazed and paranoid treasury employee that just seems to be in the wrong place at all the wrong times. Or Brad Pitt's dimwitted but very energetic gym employee that is just following along with the scheme his co- worker comes up with. To John Malkovich as a sacked spook that is quite the alcoholic and decides to write a memoir that ends up in the hands of Frances McDormand and Pitt who try and use it for blackmail or a reward or whatever they can get. Each character adds a depth to the film in their own comedic way.

The Coen's have really returned to form with their comedies that have been missing their last couple of movies in Intolerable Cruelty and the Lady Killers and just like No Country for Old Men was their best drama and movie since Fargo, Burn After Reading is their Best comedy since O Brother Where Art Thou. The movie is funny, it is witty, it is entertaining and definitely worth seeing.

Grade: B+