Finding a good movie nowadays is like finding a needle in a haystack, located within a colossal field of haystacks. The Coens are among the most successful writer/directors out there, inhaling praise around every corner and collecting every Oscar they can along the way. Last year’s No Country, despite all of the critical acclaim and awards, is still quite a misunderstood flick in terms of the casual audience. One of the more popular complaints is the strange and rather sudden ending, claiming that it was pointless and ruined the film, answering nothing. I admit it was a unique ending, but it was also pure genius, and leaves you with the perplexing “life goes on” feel. There actually were answers to many questions, but you had to pay plenty of attention to pick up on it, making this statement about as worthy a complaint as saying that you fell asleep and missed part of it.

The Coens are having themselves a ball, and their latest genre-defying romp, Burn After Reading, is their new cult classic following the footsteps of The Big Lebowski, which tells the story of… nothing. That’s right, Burn is a movie that constantly goes around in circles like a dog chasing its tail. Even if you do laugh, you’ll still walk out thinking that it was muck.

So I’ll try to explain the plot as best as I can, using the help from IMDB (I’ve already forgotten the entire thing). Brad Pitt works at a gym with Francis McDormand, a pessimist trying to look good by spending money on surgery that costs a fortune and a half. Meanwhile, John Malkovich has just quit his job and planning to write a memoir and doesn’t know that his wife (Tilda Swinton) is cheating on him with George Clooney, who is cheating on her with McDormand, who’s also married to… Ugh, I can’t go on any longer! It’s like Six Degress of Kevin Bacon from hell! Also, there’s some business with Brad Pitt coming across what he thinks are FBI secrets of some sort, and Clooney is being stalked by goons. So did you get all of that?

The only thing that could possibly draw out praise for Burn is Brad Pitt’s giddy performance as the athletic nerd at the local gym. The best part of the movie by far is whenever he’s bribing Malkovich for his “FBI secrets”.

I wondered what the purpose of Burn was while I was watching it. The Coens make you think that the plot’s coming, but it doesn’t. It also makes you think that it’s going to get funny, but it doesn’t. Seriously, I sat in that theater listening to the rest of the audience laughing themselves to death, popcorn kernels flying out of their mouths and onto the grimy floors. I didn’t laugh, because I was depressed. Depressed because the Coens were currently bastardizing their own genre.

Another thing completely wrong is the tone that the Coen brothers set. Its moody score and dreary atmosphere belonged in some sort of espionage thriller, rather than a comedy of errors. At least The Big Lebowski, as much as I didn’t care for that, had psychedelic visuals and a nice soundtrack, but Burn is just gruel. It simply lacks the depth of the Coen’s other work, and they even go so far as to striking tragedy on about half of the characters, making the last half of Burn the most depressing part of any comedy I’ve ever seen. This “tragedy” also had potential to be good and make you laugh, if only they set the tone correctly, but it simply doesn’t happen. I know the Coens can make anything funny, whether it’s William H. Macy under tremendous pressure in Fargo, or Javier Bardem threatening to kill a convenience store clerk in No Country for Old Men. This time, however, they missed the target.

So what’s the best way to end a movie well beyond it’s wanted running time (zero minutes)? With an ending that sucks harder than the last hour and a half, an ending that makes you want to run screaming out of the theater and into Tropic Thunder so that you don’t go into an epileptic fit, so you can gain back your sanity. It’s one of the biggest cop outs in cinematic history, as if the Coen brothers started getting bored of their own material. I would tell you to see it for yourselves, but I can’t send you to that theater under any circumstances.