In setting up a spy thriller that, given the idiocy of its characters, just-so-happens to proceed like a comedy, the Coens’ best humorist qualities emerge after years of slumber, now well-rested and ready to play.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 5, 2023

The Coen Brothers [return] to their comedic-crime roots... with engaging and ebullient results.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 28, 2021

I know I am about to commit film critic heresy, but I found the film's overly clever story left me cold.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 31, 2021

Learning a valuable lesson isn't a necessary component in being highly entertained.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 28, 2020

Washington farce...with a perfectly cast Brad Pitt...

| Nov 10, 2020

The Coen brothers find a way to mix both political thriller and dark comedy in Burn After Reading to give us a beautiful piece of cinema.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 12, 2020

The joy of a Coen Brothers film is that it IS confusing, yet somehow always remains coherent.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 4, 2020

Burn After Reading is a sort of anti-All the President's Men, a Washington movie whose unstated premise is that we should never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

| Jul 23, 2020

Intended as a pastiche of those grim Washington paranoia movies, it's almost as if that strived-for drabness drains the film of any real intent. It's patently unfunny too.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 8, 2020

What Burn After Reading offers is hollow, not especially insightful comedy about self-involved people whose ugly ambitions intersect and then end in brain-splattering mayhem.

| Jan 27, 2020

This is rather trivial territory for the Coens and the cast, but everyone involved is clearly having a good time.

| Original Score: B | Oct 16, 2019

Take a crazy pill or two and let Burn After Reading entertain for a few hours...

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 30, 2019

A hilarious and intelligent comedy and a worthy new member of the Coens' tradition of excellence.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 6, 2019

Burn After Reading is a comedy that makes fun of almost everything, reminding you that almost none of it is laughing matter.

| Apr 29, 2019

The Coens are having none of it. The dopes we encounter every day are the real dopes, the creeps are the real creeps, the people in and around power who seem so stupid and venal really are stupid and venal...

| Oct 30, 2018

A statement on imperial power and its sledgehammer approach to human life? Sure, why not. By the end, audiences will be as indifferent as the filmmakers.

| Oct 18, 2018

Quite a downer concept for a comedy, however black. Which is probably why it isn't very funny.

| Oct 10, 2018

Although there are a couple of vaguely amusing moments, it fails as a comedy because it just isn't funny, and it fails as a thriller because it just isn't suspenseful and it fails as entertainment of any kind because it is all so ludicrously improbable.

| Aug 23, 2018

It's not for everyone, or funny all the time, but it's worth it for the performances, the cast, the cinematography and of course the complicated and even absurd plot. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 16, 2018

Snark maybe is as snark does, but aren't there cases where snark is justified?

| Nov 17, 2017