Burn After Reading is a character driven tale of failed spies, morons and the misunderstood. Burn After Reading has a slow start but picks up momentum with a strong head of comedic steam.

Chad (Brad Pitt) is a good natured knuckleheaded enthusiastic personal trainer. Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) is a lying, cheating married man who sweet-talks endless numbers of women. Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is a disgruntled CIA analyst in a failing marriage. Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) is an employee at a gym who is consumed by her own vanity and need for cosmetic surgery for her personal reinvention. Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton) is a cold, distant and uncaring doctor. One CD with top secret information drives these characters together in a complex adventure of deceit and blackmail.

Burn After Reading's beginning is so slow, it nearly crosses into the unbearably dull. All of the characters are seem out of place, often with almost slapstick behaviors (do I hear a slide whistle?), in the pedestrian situations of the beginning. For the first forty-five minutes, each plot point required almost unmusterable levels of effort to make work and for the audience to believe. Brad Pitt's ridiculous, flailing enthusiasm saves the Burn After Reading's beginning from being a total snooze.

As it progresses, Burn After Reading's plot picks up, offering the audience a reward for their patience, true comedy and brilliant writing. Burn After Reading requires the audience to pay attention at all times to understand the satisfyingly complex plot. Writers Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, created a rabble of self-absorbed, bumbling morons.