BOTTOM LINE: Stupid, messy, crap; that in a nut-shell sums up this film which despite its all-star cast and a moment or two of witty satire, is downright annoying to watch.

THE GOOD: From the outset it appears that "Burn After Reading", the Coen Brothers follow up to the Oscar-winning "No Country For Old Men", is going to be an off-the-wall satire of the intelligence industry in the United States, and the setup gives the indication that the film will do a decent job of it with CIA Analyst Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) unceremoniously dumped from the Agency in the first scene and his explosive response. Following that, Cox decides to right his memoirs but through an elaborate series of events, the memoirs end up in the hands of two fitness instructors, Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) who believe they have stumbled upon all the secrets of the CIA and amateurishly try to sell them first to the Russians and then back to Cox. The Coen brothers set up an odd-ball world that you could almost imagine occurring behind the closed walls of the CIA. No more is this evident than in the extended cameo of JK Simmons as the CIA Director who is overlooking the events that occur in this film. In the final scene he asks, "do we even know what happened?" It is the best moment in the film and a biting jab at institutions like the CIA, especially as they proceed to cover up all the questionable actions of the characters they are surveilling even though they do not know what they are covering up.

THE BAD: After that description of the plot you might think it's a good film, however, "Burn After Reading" is a convoluted mess that takes forever to get going (a singularly odd thing given the film is only 90 odd minutes long). Although the plot becomes clear by the end of the film, there's a real sense throughout the running time where you think to yourself, "where is this going?" There are so many characters and so many different jumping off points in the plot that are all clumsily interconnected that the film never really coheres in to delivering any of its intended satire. There are a few moments of comedy, but they are few and far between, and any intended moments of comedy are lost in the mess. Perhaps the most annoying part is that this all-star cast have been made to create some of the most annoying, unrealistic characters you are likely to see. Poor Frances McDormand; her unreal, over-the-top character whose motivation is to get a lot of plastic surgery and sees an opportunity to get the money to pay for it by selling Cox's secrets is woeful. Brad Pitt is a close second; his character appears to be an early-20's idiot, but he looks over forty and completely ridiculous, despite the fact that he has one or two funny lines. George Clooney tries to have some presence, but even he isn't spared; his character's neurotic personality is only manifested in some crazy, over-the-top facial expressions and odd womanising behaving. John Malkovich is perhaps the best of the bunch, mainly because he's playing his usual intense character but his character's plot-line does not really go anywhere. I guess the point of the film is that intelligence is chaotic but I really didn't want to have to sit through 90 minutes of crap just to have that one great scene at the end with the CIA Director asking, "do we even know what happened?" to make the point.