Monday, October 27, 2008

" Burn After Reading" Review

Slug: Review
Headline: Burn After Reading
By Saloomeh Nakhsaz


Directors: Joel and Ethan CoenStarring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, and Tilda Swinton

“Burn After Reading” is a brilliant black comedy about the society’s ignorance and infidelity. Beside its unique humor and ridicule, every dialogue is intelligent, which proves the fact that the filmmakers exactly know what they are doing.

The actors are picked up brilliantly for their specific rolls. Even the actors, who play the small rolls, show us the precise images of the very specific characters in the movie.

The movie places in Washington DC, which is the center of America's political organization.

Osborne Cox (Malkovich) is a crusty CIA analyst, who is being moved down from the CIA to a low clearance post at the estate department, because of his drinking problem.
Cox takes that very insulting. He thinks of himself as the best analyst that CIA has, and believes his removal “is political.”
“I have a drinking problem, you’re Mormon. Next to you we all have a drinking problem, whose ass I didn’t kiss.” said Cox to his boss.

Cox starts to write his memoir after being kicked out, but an electronic copy of the manuscript accidently ends up in the hands of two gym employees, Chad Feldheimer (Pitt) and Linda Litzke (McDormand).

Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) is a fitness trainer, who is too goofy and indifferent to be distinguished. But he is the only one who can help Linda’s dream comes true.

All Linda Litzke( McDormand) cares about is having enough money for her extensive cosmetic surgery , so she can date a successful man instead of attracting losers with her “reinvented appearance.”

Chad and Linda plan on blackmailing Osbourne. "This could put a big dent in my surgeries," says Linda, but Osborne does not respond to their threat as hey expected and refuses to pay them ransom..
So Chad and Linda go to the Russian Embassy to sell them Osborne’s secret files, believing Russians are the country’s enemies.
Osbourne's wife Katie (Swinton) is a negative, stubborn pediatric. She is having an affair with Harry Pfarrer (Goerge Clooney), an extreme womanizer who finds women through internet dating sites. One of the women he has recently started dating is Linda.

Meanwhile the CIA agents tries to maintain the security by secrtely monitoring every one’s movement, without having the intelligence of recognizing the important matters to look for in their monitoring prcess.
"Report back to me when, I don't know, when it makes sense," said the CIA headmaster(JK Simmon)

" Body Of Lies" Review

Slug: Review
Headline: Body Of Lies
By Saloomeh Nakhsaz

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac
Directed by: Ridley Scott

“Body of Lies” is based on a 2007 novel by Washington Post foreign-affairs columnist, David Ignatius. This movie shows the CIA’s desperation in Middle East. Americans lack of knowledge of Middle Eastern culture and their ignorant attitudes make the CIA helpless in the Middle East ground despite of the fact that agency has many secret agents and high tech monitoring satellites installed all over the region.

“Body of lies” is a clever feature movie. The main characters played their parts incredibly well. The actors inhabit their characters very well and make them believable to the audience.

Leonardo Dicaprio plays Roger Ferris, the CIA agent in Iraq who speaks Arabic fluently and pretends he is from Baghdad. His next mission is to stop bombings by al-Salem, an al QAeda operative based in Jordan.

Roger is an idealist who is disappointed by the way America operates in the Middle East.
Roger believes that the head of Jordan’s secret service, Hani Salaam (Mark Strong) has more power and intelligence to protect him than his CIA head master.
Hani Salaam doesn’t trust the CIA headmasters and operation is more dominant and influential than that of the CIA.
Hani Salaam finally uses Roger as bait to catch a bigger fish. He fakes the kidnapping of Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani) by terrorists in order to make Rogers contact with the al Salem and trace him to his hideout.
Aisha is an Iranian girl who lives in Jordan with her sister and works as a nurse in a medical clinic. Roger met her at the clinic where he went to get vaccinated after he got beaten by couple of real mad dogs. Aisha is the traditional Middle Eastern girl image shown to the world.
Roger tries to trace AL-Salem in order to save Aisha’s life, but he gets captured, and tortured by Al-Salem men, in the name of Islam.
Hoffman (Russell Crow) is the CIA’s spymaster. He has a wife and two children who instruct Roger how to perform, and when it’s an urgent situation, he flies out there and talks to Roger face to face and deals with issues in his own way. But Ed’s ignorance to Middle Eastern culture and his impatience make Hani Salaam not to trust Roger or any other American agent.
Ed Hoffman’s character is what the Middle Eastern people think of Americans.
He believes no one likes the Middle East and there is nothing in Middle East for any human beings.
In a conversation with his wife, when she asks Ed to come to bed, he tells his wife that he’ll come to bed as soon as he saves civilization.
He tells Roger that he is the only one who Rogers can trust but they both know that it’s not true.
Ridley Scott brilliantly shows the world’s true face beneath deception in the “Body of lies.”