An interesting phenomenon emerges in regard to the critical reception surrounding the new Coen brothers film. Lesser known writers are almost universally positive, but turn your attention to more elevated exponents of the art of film journalism, and there's a lot more cynicism on display. Could the response from the former have something to do with the overwhelming positive reaction to the siblings' previous film, the multi Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men?
Many writers seem to have forgotten that the duo were considered to be on a pretty poor run of form before they decided to adapt Cormac McCarthy's Tex-Mex thriller for the big screen. Our own Peter Bradshaw isn't one of them.
"Burn After Reading is the Coens' most mediocre film in a long time: a desperately strained black comic farce," he writes. "It is their worst feature since The Ladykillers, which at least had the excuse of being a remake script they never really intended to make themselves. What a dog's brunch."
"This is not a great Coen brothers' film. Nor is it one of their bewildering excursions off the deep end," writes The Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert. "It's funny, sometimes delightful, sometimes a little sad, with dialogue that sounds perfectly logical until you listen a little more carefully and realise all of these people are mad. The movie is only 96 minutes long. That's long enough for a movie, but this time, I dunno, I thought the end felt like it arrived a little arbitrarily."
The Times' James Christopher is one of the few major critics to offer the Coens some positivity, although even he has his misgivings. "Burn After Reading is a brilliant joke about a staple Hollywood genre," he writes. "It is a surreal satire about spy thrillers. Indeed, the spies and thrills don't add up at all. The plot is a total mistake. The characters are madly absurd. The film shouldn't work, but it does."
Empire's Ian Nathan even goes so far as to talk about the film in the same light as its high-profile predecessor. "If No Country For Old Men was vintage port, Burn After Reading is a shot of tequila," he writes. "[it's] eye watering and hard to swallow, but the after-effect is terrific."
Did you catch Burn After Reading at the weekend, and did it disappoint you after No Country For Old Men? Or perhaps you were pleased to see the Coens returning to a comedic style closer to that of their previous success stories? Do let us know in the comments section below.
