Have you ever met someone who just oozes willful ignorance?  They’re the sort that, when you’re introduced to them, just in case you are not sufficiently aware of how intellectually and socially vapid they really are, seem to spend every subsequent minute of the conversation shining the figurative neon road signs of their own inescapable foolishness right in your eyes.  Come on, you’re thinking of someone right now aren’t you?  I met one of them at work today, in fact.

“Yes, sir.  I’m sure you’re right.  I’m sure it’s not your fault your thirteen-dollar check bounced.  Sure, I believe that your bank failed to notify you, after all, correspondence is tricky when you’re Nascar mail box keeps falling off the patched particleboard deck of your trailer.”

You know what I’m talking about?  If you do, you’ll immediately see why Burn After Reading is so frustrating.  Nearly every character in this movie is that person (sans the Nascar mailbox).  In fact, every character is at the opposite end of the aforementioned stereotype, but I didn’t meet any snobby socialites today – just Nascar Sam.

There’s a familiar, but not unwelcome, feeling of aimlessness to the newest Coen brothers comedy.  It’s the lack of The Dude that really makes the whole thing a depressing waste of time.  Let’s take Linda Litzke played by Frances McDormand for starters. McDormand plays Linda like the grown up version of a child that was written out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory for being insufferably annoying.  Oh the joy I could have obtained had I thought to write my own Oompa Loompa song for Linda rather than pay attention to the plot!  Her first scene alone is enough to clue us into the fact that, for 90 minutes, we’re going to watch a conveyor belt of stupidity, or, as John Malkovich’s Osborne Cox would say, “a league of morons.”

I won’t waste your time with a synopsis of this film.  In the age of high-speed Internet, why do critics even bother any more?  A synopsis of this film can only ruin something you have a far greater chance of enjoying if you know nothing about it.  Besides, this movie is about avoiding explanations.  This one doesn’t tie anything up in a conventional way.  It’s about that feeling you get when you simply can’t explain why people do ridiculous, even dreadful things.  Why do seemingly successful men, like George Clooney’s Harry Pfarrer, cheat on their seemingly perfect wives?  Why do perfectly good-looking people, like McDormand’s Lindske, want to surgically enhance their appearance? Why does Malkovich always play crazy with a capital f-bomb?  

The shame is that this whole mess could have been a relatively pleasant experience, that is, if the league of morons weren’t the main focus.  There are two people in this film (J.K. Simmons & David Rasche) that serve as the only glimpse of sanity, looking down on the whole mess with resigned befuddlement.  These two were hilarious, and the only thing that made the other 85 minutes of this torture endurable.  I would have watched a movie about these two any day.  At least then I would have felt that the Coens didn’t hate the characters on screen.  Instead, not only did I get the distinct impression that they care less about their characters than I do about flossing, there was this creeping suspicion that the Coens think I, the audience member, am comfortably ensconced in the league of morons.  Now, I agree there are millions of Nascar Sams, crazy Malkovich’s and insecure, chatty Litzkes out there, but come on, give your audience some credit.  I don’t know about you, but when I go to the movies I don’t want to be called a moron.