One Movie You Should NEVER Watch in the Cinema

Note that I said 'Cinema', meaning that if you can, god forbid for the piracy and copyright issue, obtain a downloaded version or *ahem* pirated CD which are so rampant in Malaysia of it, by all means, watch it, laugh yourself silly or cough blood, and curse the movie forever.

Now, what exactly is this movie I'm ranting, or it may seem to you, raving about? It's called 'Burn After Reading', a black comedy, starring Hollywood hotshots like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and a cast whose average age is above 40, I guess.

Now, if you are still planning to watch this movie, you might want to stop reading from here, because the following contains spoilers to the movie.

At first, we are exposed to Cox Osbourne, a former CIA agent who has been fired for some reasons. Dejected, he starts to write a memoir of himself, only to have the CD containing it fall into the hands of two gym employees who are desperate for some fast cash.

One of the gym employees who found the CD was a middle-aged woman (Linda Listze), overly concerned about her looks and pushing her employers to subsidise her costs for plastic surgery, claiming that it will 'enhance her self image and help her to deal with customers better, to improve the business of the company'. Unsurprisingly, her application was rejected by the higher-ups. Still, she was obsessive about her body, which 'has wrinkles, extra flab everywhere and sags a lot' and adamant to get the plastic surgery at all costs.

After the two gym employees, Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda found the CD, they opened the disc in their company computer, and Chad saw a lot of numbers and funny statements without realising that they were part of Osbourne's memoir. Enlisting the help of his friend, Chad managed to find out the owner of the CD, his job, his number and his address. Thinking that the CD contains classified CIA information, both of them decided to exhort Osbourne using the CD.

After that, the plot starts to spiral crazily. First, the CD does not contain any important information. However, the CIA was keeping a track on Osbourne because they want to make sure that he does not exact revenge upon the agency by revealing classified information. Then, there are the two idiots from the gym, wishing to exhort Osbourne on the basis that the CD contains top-secret info, and when Osbourne scoffs and tells them off, Linda and Chad brought the CD to the Russian embassy, wanting to sell it to them.

Things are further complicated as Osbourne's wife secretly plans to divorce him, having an affair with a married guy named, who also has an affair with Linda. Unknowingly, Harry's wife is also planning to divorce him for some reason, and the confusion goes on and one.

The highlight of the movie is probably when Brad Pitt died abruptly and shockingly. He broke into Osbourne's house, trying to find more 'CIA inside information' and has to hide in a closet when suddenly, Harry goes into the house after a rendezvous with Mrs Osbourne. When Harry went to get clothes from the closet, Chad gave him a big shock, the gun went off suddenly and...he died.

Ah, I forgot to mention another guy, Ted, who was the manager/owner of the gym Chad and Linda work in. He has a crush on Linda but is too afraid to make it clear. Out of love, he helped Linda look for Chad (she thought he was missing when he was dead), and even broke into the same house again. This time, he met Osbourne, who was drunk and agitated for his wife has already withdrawn all money from their bank accounts, leaving only 100 dollars. Osbourne shot Ted in the head and chopped him to death with an axe.

The greatest irony came in the end of the story, where the Russian embassy denied the usefulness of the CD while the CIA kept a close eye on all those involved in this case. At last, they apprehended Linda, one of the police shot Osbourne after seeing him kill Ted and wondered what actually happened. Linda actually had the guts to request for them to pay the bills of her surgery, and it got ACCEPTED!

Everything, deaths, conflicts and confusion over a stupid memoir which was worth nothing. Actually, everything here stems from Linda's selfish and one-tracked desire to make herself look prettier, forgetting that real beauty comes from the soul.

When the movie ended, my friends and I were extremely dissatisfied, and all of us had the 'WTF' look on our faces. The ending was too abrupt, the loose ends wasn't tied up properly and there was no real moral value to that story. Even one CIA chief was seen saying 'I don't know what happened. Let's learn something from this - never do this ever again.'

WTF??!!! The ratings in one newspaper is quite good though, 3.5 out of 5, although I personally won't give it even 1. Despite that, it all depends on personal taste.