Burn After Reading

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

If you have any intention of seeing "Burn After Reading" I recommend you stop reading this immediately because I will ruin the movie for you. And then you will cry.

So anyway, I went and saw "Burn After Reading" yesterday. And for the most part it was an enjoyable experience. Brad Pitt was great...actually pretty much everyone was great. And the story was out there and crazy and all zany and stuff. It was wild. But here's the problem I have. They set the whole thing up as this zany comedy and all this wild stuff is going on and you're having a good laugh, and then George Clooney shoots Brad Pitt in the head. Just BLAM! and blood all over the wall and...well needless to say there was nothing funny about that. Not only did they kill the best character, but they did it in a very violent and disgusting matter. And if you're going to set up a movie as such a crazy comedy, you can't just randomly throw in something so serious and graphic an hour into the film. Of course, then they go right back to trying to convince you that it's still a light comedy. But at that point they had lost me. Their desperate attempts to win me back almost started working...and then John Malkovich (who I love no matter what he's doing) goes ahead and chops the shit out of the gym manager with an ax. Of course, then they try to wrap it up like "Oh this was all funny the entire time! Look at how zany it was!" And I'm just sitting there thinking...well yeah...the first hour was fine...but in case you forgot, brutal murders aren't exactly hilarious. It's one thing to kill somebody in a comedy a la "Dumb and Dumber" where it's something completely stupid. But to have an action/drama/horror movie murder or two smack in the middle of an otherwise lighter comedy...it didn't make sense to me and just really killed the entire vibe. So I was left unsettled as I departed, but still managed to like the movie mostly. 67% of it to be exact. And that's a passing grade.