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It usually takes a generation for a joke to stop making sense.
(Do the 20-somethings of today even get the idea of Saturday morning cartoons?)
Seeking to profit from their discovery, Linda and Chad give a shot to extort money from Osborne.
In 2008, this was a joke, and a good joke.
Whats more, they cant even manage to keep this misguided bit of intrigue a secret.
The Russian embassy is a blocky, brutalist structure seemingly transported brick-by-brick from behind the Iron Curtain.
Its easy to experience a weird kind of time warp watchingBurn After Readingnow.
The flip phones and Chads ever-present iPod shuffle feel like they belong a decade in the past.
But this idea of Russia?
Can it really only have been ten years ago the country felt so marginal?
If the Coens had built the whole film around this joke, it would probably still be funny.
There arent that many jokes in Coen brothers movies that dont work.
(Putting aside large chunks ofIntolerable Crueltyand most ofThe Ladykillers.)
What real harm could he cause?
Theyre characters in a Joel and Ethan Coen movie, in other words.
SinceBlood Simple, the Coens have explored how greed and lust lead to chaos.
The stark contrast between Marge and the character McDormand plays here makes her work here seem even richer.
Marge is not only a good person, shes canny operator who knows to keep her feelings to herself.
She assumes everyone else thinks the same way, and maybe shes not wrong.
Osbornes a fool, and hes the only one who doesnt know it.
Shades, too, of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
What reverence is owed a branch of the government capable of failure on such a grand scale?
At the end of the film, Palmer briefs him on the latest updates of the messy situation.
Its a screw-up, sure, but at least its been contained.
The films last joke is on us.
