Burn After Reading - Beyond Stupid

How stupid are the characters from Burn After Reading and what are their common traits ?

[@saturatedcranium]

Although utterly hilarious, I was really saddened when Chad died.

[@leonel91]

@@sWrd_Master same, I lost my shit when it happened, i'll never forget that scene lol

[@kadenbrown5806]

just watched it for first time today( ik i’m late) but man i almost turned movie off after that

[@NB-gu9rs]

Yeah, the poor guy was like a big stupid puppy, so naive, so eager to please, so totally oblivious...

[@Carsonch]

I was too at first until I realized he was the one who started this whole mess. He got himself into that situation himself

[@ResidentXyanide]

This is the movie that made me a Malkovich fan, his way of switching his intensity levels is crazy af.

[@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017]

This is one of his better roles. I usually find him to be extremely annoying.

[@jayNicks10]

So Chad dies Ted dies Osbourne goes in a coma Harry flees to Venezuela And Linda gets the procedure she wanted.

[@jsmith434w]

So... happy ending?

[@milkgotzgames]

John Smith pretty much it’s a wild story with a good ending

[@CopiousDoinksLLC]

...And nobody ends up being any wiser for any of it. Nobody learns any lessons and nobody has any character arc. Every single person ends up either exactly where they were in terms of mindset or they're functionally dead.

[@addamz3277]

Spoiler Alert!

[@fjhaydn6047]

@@jsmith434w No. But, Happy Viewing

[@Miss.6ixEdits]

I find it more of a mirror to any agency, business or relationship. The arrogance. Everyone feels as though they're important, in control, indulging in whatever they please, making decisions they seem fit but in reality, have no idea the impact or chain of events that can stem form it.

[@grayforester]

I love the score, too, for that reason: all orchestral percussion, portentious and massive, no melody, no harmony. Just boom boom!

[@jpalexander292]

I work for the U.S. government and the Malkovich and Clooney characters are perfect examples of thinking they are somehow important even in reality they are mid level and easily replaceable. They are not dumb just delusional. The Pitt character is actually the best person in this whole movie but also the dumbest. Unlike the rest he is fine with his dumbness and a threat to no one. He dies because of his goodness which is a form of stupidity I guess.

[@Crooky0]

Oh they're dumb, just not in the extremely obvious ways that Pitt's character is. Malkovich was bad enough at his job to get demoted from a "no biggie" sigint position and lose his supposedly damning classified intel, not to mention towards the end running outside to bludgeon a guy to death with a hammer in broad daylight. Clooney's character is a pseudo-intellectual showing cracks with things like "shell food", "lactose reflux", comically short showers after running (military showers are still 1-2 minutes, not 15 seconds), etc. Blows a guy's brains out then is calling out to him as he goes back up like there'd be even the slightest chance he's still alive. Perfectly melds with another idiot, McDormand's character. The point of this movie is none of these people think they're stupid but they're all definitely stupid and their stupidity is wreaking more havoc than they could possibly imagine.

[@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017]

Intelligence rarely correlates with wisdom, common sense, or self-insight. Take Sam Harris for instance. The guy probably has a high 140's IQ, but is utterly incapable of seeing when he's beeing a humongous hypocrite.

[@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017]

@@Crooky0 Well put. Even Cox's wife, who probably has the highest IQ of the bunch is a raving retard also. She was oblivious that Harry's heart wasn't in the relationship or that her ice-cold personality and domineering manner would always drive men away (or to drink). I find it interesting that none of these people have children. It seems like a lot of this idiocy could be avoided if they had children in their lives to focus on rather then on themselves. To me it's an unintentional commentary on the typical liberal mindset- atheistic, narcissistic, short sighted and emotionally stunted.

[@TheAmateurEditor]

@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 Harris' problem is a combination of denial and narcissism. He clearly knows when he is being hypocritical, he just can't bring himself to admit it seeing how he calls out hypocrisy in others. Instead of just admitting to his own personal prejudices, he engages in the same mental gymnastics he calls out in others. I actually agree with him on more issues than I don't, but his defence of all the media propaganda and lies to prevent Trump's re-election seriously made me lose all respect for him. I can still agree with him on a ton of things, but ultimately, he lost me when he showed a distinct lack of moral fortitude.

[@answerman9933]

@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 How is being a hypocrite contrary to being intelligent, wise, or having common sense?

[@Inbal_Feuchtwanger]

5:31 I just love that stupid face he makes before getting shot. This scene had me rolling on the floor.

[@scotttully8572]

My mom has that same sick sense of humor. It was her favorite part!! 😬

[@Maximustard]

Me too, funniest shot ever

[@SirVergewaltig0re]

Brad Pitt is just an very good actor. His facial expression is always on point.

[@mujahidulislamsamy]

thank god i wasnt the only one shocked and laughing at the same time, i thought i was a sick fuck lmao

[@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017]

@@SirVergewaltig0re He's actually a better comedic actor than he is a dramatic actor.

[@bogdankp]

This movie is utterly brilliant!

[@JackDonnell96]

I disagree

[@bogdankp]

@@JackDonnell96 I respect your opinion

[@bruhhh._.150]

@@JackDonnell96 I respectfully disrespect your opinion.

[@addamz3277]

@@bruhhh._.150 I disrespectfully disrespect your respectful disrespect of his opinion 😏

[@zero11010]

This is one of the least enjoyable movies I’ve ever seen. I hated it so deeply. There is something I liked about the movie. Brad Pitt played an absolutely idiot and really far from his Troy and Fight Club characters. It showed some range.

[@The_Evan_Jones]

This movie is genius. If you feel dumb at the end, take solace in the fact that you’ll never have to worry about understanding film at this level of hilarity. It is a well-crafted work of art that stands out against a backdrop of the cliche and shallow “drivel” of other dark-comedy attempts. It gives the greats like Dr. Strangelove a damn good run for their money. This movie will wonderfully stand the tests of time. “We were young and committed, and there was nothing we could not do...”

[@rimrunz1795]

hogwash. Th plot is mediocre at best, and understanding this film , overall, has damn little to do with our intellectual ability to decipher that which is too mudded up with tarnished shades of "film noir" to be decipherable. Take th film at its face value----however it may present itself - - - - and laugh along with it. Comparing it to Dr Strangelove is absurd.

[@WiggleJimmy]

I like the idea that the title "Burn After Reading" and the line "What did we learn?" go hand in hand with one another as a reference of our inability to learn. It's like if you read a book from cover to cover, didn't absorb a single word of it, then burnt it immediately afterwards without learning any lesson or moral from it, inevitably leading you to one day have to read it again to try to gleam the same meaning only to fail once more. "What did we learn?" And the unspoken answer: "Nothing."

[@CaesarInVa]

Ok, that cobble-stoned street in DC that Clooney's character is running up at 2:04....that's 36th NW or something like that....got a great story...some thirty years ago, when I was an undergraduate, I was taking classes at Georgetown University. A freak ice storm had swept through the region the day before the Spring semester began (sometime in mid-January). Every school as far north as Villanova in Philadelphia and Duke down in North Carolina had closed.....except f'ing Georgetown. So like a moron, being ex-Navy, vanity dictated that I HAD to make class, particularly since it was the FIRST day of the semester. So I got up on that first day of classes at 5AM, de-iced my car (which took about an hour), drove to the local metro station only to find that it was so cold that the first train had broken down. So I rode the second train to Rosslyn, which was close as you can get to Georgetown (or so I thought), and walked in near-zero temperatures across the Potomac River to the campus. As I carefully made my way across Key bridge (EVERYTHING was coated in an inch of ice...railings, sidewalks, steps, the streets, EVERYTHING), I looked out at the Potomac River to find a scene like something out of Ice Station Zebra. Ice floes had piled up on one another, the river was iced over from the Virginia to the DC shorelines, etc. Now, as an ex-sailor, I know about dressing for the weather, so I had prudently layered myself with a thick parka, beneath which I wore a jacket, a sweater, a pull-over and a scarf. For the lower part of my body, I had donned three pairs of trousers, two pairs of heavy woolen socks and work boots. And of course I had a good thick scarf on....however, as for the part of the anatomy from which a majority of body heat escapes (the head), the best I could do was a baseball cap. As I got to the bridge's mid-span, I could feel my brain shutting down, like a light bulb growing ever dimmer from the cold. I thought to myself "If I go down here, on the sidewalk side of the jersey barriers, my body won't be found for a couple days". I was in my late 20s at the time and was at the peak of physical condition. I could bike 35 miles, do 150 sit ups, worked out daily with weights, etc., but despite all that, I found myself receiving ominous signals of distress and danger from my body. For the first time in my life, I thought my body might actually fail me. Somehow I managed to make it to the far side of the bridge, which you can clearly see in the background in this shot. Then the REAL challenge began. Because everything was caked in inch-thick ice, I literally had to climb on my hands and knees, grabbing onto shrubbery, iron fence-posts, car bumpers, etc., to get up the street. Twice I lost my grip and slid back down to M Street. Eventually, after what seemed like super-human exertions on my part, I made it up the street and to the building. I was about an hour early, so I got to chatting with the campus police officer who was posted to the building. I proudly bragged that I had just walked all the way over from the Rosslyn metro station, to which the officer replied "Why didn't you take the shuttle bus? It runs every 20 minutes.". I was floored. I can assure you, I took full advantage of the bus on the way back to the metro station after class but what really chaps my ass is that I caught pneumonia from that little exercise in stupidity that kept me bed-ridden for nearly a month. I learned a valuable lesson from that experience: sometimes its more prudent to accept graciously a minor setback rather than trying to fight it and ending up dealing with a severe reversal.

[@christinewillis7545]

Your story is just as funny as Burn After Reading. You should keep writing. You make the world a happier place, Blessings and respect.

[@wetigaz]

"most of their films rely on the stupidity of their characters" - someone who has seen less than half of the coen brothers filmography.

[@mattkillam2033]

I think this movie kicks ass

[@haroldbridges515]

More precisely the characters exhibit the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[@robbylebotha]

Lol how long had you been waiting to find the perfect use for that? Sounds like you have been holding in for ages.

[@metabolismofindominable8219]

Osborne Cox was unleashing his psychotic ramblings that characterized his nonsense everyone on this film but he had yet to remind himself he was in the League of Morons as the Leader of Morons himself.

[@thepaintingbanjo8894]

They couldn't find a better casting choice for Cox than Malkovich, I think they casted him specifically for this movie. Malkovich didn't even need to put much an effort other than just be himself.

[@KironKhashnobish]

Great video! Though you should have included how Linda gets what she wanted in the end and what makes it happen.

[@dannyvalencia5224]

Dude, this was awesome. Please, Please keep making videos. More people will watch once you get your name out. This was just what I was looking for.

[@goobfilmcast4239]

Everyone dumb?...yes.....but Linda got what she sought from the beginning, so.......

[@darrellbryant1018]

I like your take on this movie. I even though I thought the movie was good I didn’t understand it until I watch this video. The only thing off was that Cox wasn’t fired. They told him he’d be moved to state with a lower security clearance. They specifically said we’re not terminating you.

[@Apudurangdinya]

honestly chad death is the most shocking thing ever, i screamed NO CHAAAAD in my mind, got, especially his smile right before harry shot him dead

[@cocoluco54]

I've watched this movie 10 times I think I never get tired.

[@VolkerGoller]

The greatest actor who ever lived in another awesome role - David Rasche.

[@keithmccall5170]

Notice the wedding ring on the tuckman marsh fella hahaha

[@wayoutwestcreatives9769]

Beautifully analyzed and presented. 👏🏻

[@brucetucker4847]

The most accurate portrayal of the CIA that ever has be or will be filmed.

[@nomejko]

This explanation sums up my workplace, management and co workers

[@Wowaniac]

Intelligence is retaliative, you may be knowledgeable in one area while someone else isn't that doesn't make them an Idiot, just unknowledgeable in that area. Same goes for you.

[@CousinBowling]

"A low-ranking sigh-yayai analyst"

[@millsykooksy4863]

I love Osborne 💕 I don’t think it’s stupidity that they’re mocking I think it’s ego, grandiosity and arrogance….each character thinks they know the next step to take but they don’t understand that life is not as predictable as they think it is 🤷🏻‍♀️ I love this movie

[@dougstyles]

I loved this hidden gem

[@HighLordBlazeReborn]

Couple more idiots you missed: - Cox's wife. Here's a woman that wants to divorce a man with anger issues and a drinking problem and move on to not just sleeping with but moving in with a childish idiot who has no personality traits in common with her: Pfarrer. She and Cox at least share some kind of commonality- this man she wants to spend the rest of her life with is even further from the mark. At least if she was divorcing Cox for someone better, that's understandable, but Pfarrer? Really? Or if she was just using him with no desire for any long-term commitment (remember, she's the one that wants to move in together, not him). On top of that she lets herself be manipulated into the divorce, wallowing in her superiority so much that she doesn't realize her lawyer is literally leading her down the path and dictating her entire life. - the CIA. You know Cox has a drinking problem and is volatile, and you begin his termination with "you have a drinking problem"? Jesus christ, they didn't have some way of making this idiot feel the move to State was a special assignment or something so he wouldn't just go off the rails? He's not a huge clearance risk, sure, but he's apparently high up enough that he's able to draw a salary to live the way he does, and he's shown to come from money and have connections- that's still someone who could let out a lot of shit in public. - Pfarrer's wife. This one doesn't seem to be an idiot on the surface, until you see that she's a different kind of idiot. She's apparently cheating on Pfarrer with that one guy in that one city (I forget which) she keeps 'being sent' to, and it's established this has been a long-term thing. And the fact that her lawyers had a guy following her husband around as recently as the events of the film possibly means she doesn't know for sure that Pfarrer is a philanderer. So here's someone that's been considering divorce from a guy she has no evidence is cheating because- guess what, she wants to use that as an excuse to shack up with the guy SHE'S cheating with. Fucking christ. Other than the Russians, the CIA bossman, and Cox's friend at the club, I can't think of anyone that wasn't an idiot here. Hell, even Linda's first hookup is a fucking idiot for letting some random woman rifle through his apartment while working at the State department.

[@patrickburke2187]

The film is about vanity and self-obsession. The characters appear stupid, because the scope of their understanding is limited by their inability to see beyond their own personal wants and needs. Their reality is warped, distorted around the mass of their selfish desires. And other, good natured people can be destroyed if they get caught in the orbit of another person’s pointless self-obsession. What makes Burn After Reading unique is how this indictment of this traditionally American consumerist self-obsession (which is a fairly common narrative trope), is pitted in a Kafka-esque, morally indifferent world dominated by bureaucratic entities that are similarly self-obsessed on an institutional level. They don’t care about what’s wrong or right, only about what serves their (often lazy) needs.

[@NinoNiemanThe1st]

Spot on! These movie reviewers are mostly people who could barely get through any other under-grad course like chemistry or English at a proper college/university with their trite and simplistic and cliched observations, but this review was pretty good!

[@heavierthanairfilms]

Dunning-Krueger Effect: The Movie.

[@onewhowaits7674]

Watching this synopsis I realized who I am for a brief moment. Thank you.

[@josephhoman8602]

Good job for pointing some things out for me Jaun..thank you

[@Crescent_Audio]

I knew this movie was genius, I just couldn’t quite articulate why, but you nailed it, this was a hilariously dark comedy of errors, and the last lines in the film cap it off so perfectly.

[@phqutub]

I dont understand why people are making shitty comments saying you dont understand humor. He described exactly what the Coen brothers were trying to achieve.

[@ryansaunchegraw2836]

That was an interesting spin on that...

[@thesep1967]

That is the core theme of the movie: stupidity! Which makes it an American masterpiece ...

[@IF013]

Thanks for making this video, made some more things clear about the movie

[@sherrywilson7310]

“I should get a run in”

[@jdgustofwinddance.7748]

No one says “no” to Pappy O’Daniels. I was pissed that Linda didn’t suffer or pay for her transgressions.

[@namedrop721]

People do heinous things and …really nothing external happens to them.

[@jdgustofwinddance.7748]

@@namedrop721 an allegory/metaphor for life, I suppose.

[@Robert...Schrey]

Chad is an early adopter of Apple stuff. Not so stupid after all.

[@axeblue]

He wasn't fired b'cuz of his drinking problem, it literally was political [tje cross], b'cuz of Olson's recommendation; using alcoholism as a means to fire him. "You're a mormon! next to you, we all have a drinking problem''

[@TomEyeTheSFMguy]

He wasn't fired. He quit because he was demoted.

[@ZKitx411]

Bro. U kept me wanting more. I was upset the video ended. Good vid👍

[@nilomyki]

Frances McDormand got a nice rear.

[@brycejohansen7114]

I enjoyed this film but have almost completely forgot what it was about. All I remember is Brad Pitt getting shot in the face and feeling bad for his character.

[@mickeytwister4721]

Guys, your all taking this too seriously. The movie is just a dark comedy making fun of our perception of intelligence agencies as these super secretive underground networks, when in reality there just a bunch of boring people who know a lot of other boring people.

[@PotrzebieConolly]

It's fascinating to compare Brad Pitt's performance here and in Moneyball.

[@HenryVandenburgh]

The film is fucking hilarious. People can be like this. I hate the "ideal" way many of the characters in films are portrayed. The ending is punk, though.

[@dickrichards9650]

The cornerstone of intelligence, is to grasp how little, one knows.

[@kb-zealot]

We don't know that Osborn was actually fired for having a drinking problem, we've seen him drinking heavily throughout the film but that's understandable considering circumstances. And firing someone for being a drunk is probably easier than firing someone for being an asshole, which seems to me more like the real reason he was fired. Harry was a player and a narcissist. Flawed but no villain. And not really an idiot either. Linda: obsessed with an irrational goal to the point of self destruction and endangering those around her. I'd say the best word to describe her is "crazy". Chad: yeah, just an idiot so basically: Osborn: asshole Harry: narcissist Linda: crazy Chad: idiot

[@davidstone9467]

Wow, this describes 95% of the middle aged people in Washington DC

[@redredred1]

I'm writing a ... memwah.

[@kimblers]

This movie is fantastic because they are all clueless. Everyone did a super job.

[@ShutUpCatProductions]

If I understood this movie I wouldn’t be on this KZbin video....

[@DeadManSinging1]

Wow, a guy who made a video essay that wasnt pretentious and didnt go for 40 minutes

[@parsa2176]

when chad died i bursted up laughing

[@timothybell5698]

I'm in the 96th percentile for... some... brain thing, and I felt dumber than every character except Pitt's and Clooney's.

[@DoctorSess]

I’m in the 98th percentile and let me tell you: it doesn’t mean shit. Brains are useless without sense and experience.

[@a1919akelbo]

Intelligence is always relative. If it was a life or death quiz show on purses and designer clothing and you were up against kim Kardashian, you would die.

[@wretchedslippage3255]

A "League of morons" you might say! Love this movie

[@humanbeing2420]

This film is The Big Lebowski but in Washington, DC instead of LA.

[@b.hornetiii.6771]

This is life. Life is for the gambler one prophet said once, 2000 years ago.

[@renumeratedfrog]

Comedies aren't meant to be ecducational

[@TheDarmach]

Subtitles embedded in the video? o_0

[@GregMoress]

So what did we learn from this?

[@mussaranya]

Casals? Are you Catalan, or have Catalan family?

[@jacobmorris2808]

This was great analysis

[@aanonymousamanda1711]

How can you say the plot isn't interestin?!!?

[@r.deeblanche6939]

Spoilers galore if you haven’t seen it and plan to.

[@biln2]

i've watched this movie a half dozen times. that doesn't make me an expert, but i largely agree that the movie is about buffoonery. but as a person who has worked in humint and sigint for decades, i enjoyed the way the movie satirizes America's haphazard approach to counterintelligence and intelligence gathering. the reason the movie is more funny than sad is that it portrays a few individuals being ground up by an overpowering, omniscient apparatus. in reality, the situation causes the destruction of nations by de facto "imperial" behavior exercised by sociopaths that have risen through the ranks via partisan hop scotch.

[@jrpro5195]

I thought it was just making fun of the beltway types…

[@patmaloney5735]

i never thought of that. nice... wait. 😓

[@kourii]

« Mémouares? » J'sais pas si ce type ne sait pas ce que c'est que des mémoires ou si ce n'est qu'il n'arrive pas à écrire, mais ça fait rire

[@carpballet]

These movies are very difficult to watch. The stupidity reminds me of every day. And that depresses the hell out of me.

[@MyOrangeString]

This is such a great take, cheers!

[@garlandetheridge9902]

A real funny movie

[@Pete8673]

If nobody still do not get the purpose of this movie or understand what this is about, this is all about Linda getting her procedure and how she or this led everyone's lives messed up. Comments if you agreed with me. I could be wrong.

[@BoWSkittlez]

How do I turn off the french subtitles?

[@skullquarry]

Very Political, man.

[@_Ramen-Vac_]

the whole point, or *moral* of the film is.. ~stuff that you thought mattered an awful desperately intense LOT.. winds up not mattering at all. Including your message to the world.

[@coolbanda5446]

Great video brother

[@perdedoronline]

Ozzy wasn't fired

[@hypernation8298]

Isn't this the dunning kreuger effect?

[@gloinschmelzer7601]

Creator completely ignores the fact that a protagonist is working for CIA so theres little to learn for "everyday people like you and me" because CIA is not some normal company

[@mdhj67]

I think you're taking a fun movie way to serious.

[@TomEyeTheSFMguy]

You're saying that fun movies can't be deeply analyzed? Cuz that's dumb and wrong. No offense.

[@ma.genellaflores5472]

Loved thisss

[@mochalo4912]

it s a great movie

[@stevewimmer9758]

Dude wasn't even representing Hard Bodies tho

[@staceymeans134]

Sometimes a movie can just be hilarious and enjoyable without "meaning" anything. This is one of those movies.

[@stuv1996]

I think the writers may have felt it had some meaning.

[@sergoldenhandthejust1495]

Cox wasn't fired though, right?

[@ujwalgoyal578]

I don't get the title

[@RafaelHabegger]

is good.

[@sweetpeaches6916]

Didn’t they direct no country for old men?

[@TomEyeTheSFMguy]

Yeah. They have two modes.

[@kenhaus3104]

I define stupidity as creating a video about a movie premise and getting the premise of the movie wrong.

[@elevro]

Your crappy quality video made me question my screens integrity what a shame that i will leave after 50 seconds

[@adellerr]

I love this movie!

[@mehphisto]

This was a good movie, your negative BS is just like, "your opinion man"

[@TomEyeTheSFMguy]

Did you even watch the video? He's not criticizing it.

movie died along with Chad ...

[@karemortensen7548]

All the male characters are enjoyable in this movie. On the other hand, all the female characters are unlikeable here.

[@nadeemkevka275]

When brad Pitt was shot i stopped watching the damn movie.. i was legit pissed off . The only reason i was gonna watch that movie was because of brad pitt and boom