P has taken ages to post this review as she has been really busy at work - pity, since the film was an excellent one. Burn After Reading is a Coen Brothers movie, and as such descends from a pedigree of Coen Brothers films such as Fargo, Hudsucker Proxy and the more recent No Country for Old Men. Those who are after more of the latter should note that the black political comedy of Burn After Reading is in stark contrast to the brooding angst of NCFOM.

A-list veteran actor John Malkovitch takes the central role of Osbourne Cox, the CIA analyst who decides to quit his job before he is demoted due to alcoholism. This is the cue for his British ice-queen of a wife (Tilda Swinton), who has been having a tempestous affair with Treasury agent and neighbour Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), to think seriously about dumping him; particularly when Ozzy chooses to stay home all day to write his memoirs. Her divorce lawyer counsels her to secure copies of Ozzy's financial files before the divorce and she does so, copying most of his personal data, including his unpublished memoirs, onto a CD. It is this CD which her lawyer's receptionist loses during her next visit to the gym, Hardbodies. Enter Ted Traffon (Richard Jenkins), the gym's manager, and his two idiot employees, plastic-surgery obsessed Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and stereotyped dumb jock, Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt).

A janitor finds the CD and passes it to Chad who upon seeing the content decides that "this is serious ... CIA-type shit" and persuades Linda that there may be a reward for returning the disc to its owner. However, Chad and Linda's initial attempt to contact Ozzy goes seriously wrong when Ozzy decides that the two are attempting to blackmail him for the return of the information. Linda decides to play along with Ozzy's assumptions as she needs the cash to pay for planned cosmetic surgery and she and Chad begin a seriously bungled attempt to blackmail Ozzy and/or sell the "classified information" to the Russians which ultimately results in several murders and terminations, a traumatised Harry (who discovers his wife has known about his serial philandering all along), and the CIA attempting to cover up everything.

All these lives intertwine, helped along by plenty of coincidences, internet dating and affairs, resulting in a misanthropic screwball comedy-of-errors (everyone's a loser in this picture and even the government is portrayed as idiotic). The Coen Brothers' original script occasionally loses its way, but is always salvaged by the A-list actors that lie at the heart of the action. Brad Pitt is magnificent as the happy-go-lucky brainless jock, Chad - portraying him as the ultimate gum-chewing airhead with sculpted muscles. John Malkovitch, well, what can I say? He's John Malkovitch and embodies the sad alcoholic civil servant, emasculated by his wife and superiors and taking out his rage on the world. Frances McDormand too provides lots of laughs as she relentlessly pursues her dreams of physical perfection and marrying into a better life, getting into more and more trouble as she does so, all the while ignoring the lovelorn Ted at her doorstep. George Clooney takes the opportunity to make fun of his own image as the sexiest man alive, playing a serial philanderer who finally bites off more than he can chew.

Put together with a sharply satirical script that rages at a shallow and stupid world (how many s's did I get in that sentence?), the movie is a wonderful polemic on 21st century America. Go see it and have fun but be warned that the film uses more repetitions of the F and S words than P has ever heard in one movie!

BTW, P ended up winning movie premiums so now has a poster, a notebook and a little blue "Burn After Reading" towel!