"Burn After Reading", the latest effort from the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan) has been playing in theatres awhile now and is a box office hit. But some critics have decried the fact that the brothers have returned to exaggerated comedy with this film, as if somehow, it were beneath them to make a picture like this now that "No Country for Old Men" received such acclaim. I disagree - to me, "Burn After Reading" is more preferrable, mainly because it has no plot holes that leave you wondering, as "No Country" does.

The film begins as CIA agent Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is told that it would be better for him to leave, primarily because of his drinking and his hot temper. He resigns, letting his overbearing wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) think it was his idea. The two later attend a party, at which one of the guests is Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), who happens to be Katie's secret lover, as well as the willing bed partner of any pretty woman within distance. Unknown to Cox (Malkovich), Katie is taking steps to divorce him. Her lawyer recommends that she look up all of Malkovich's financial assets and enter them onto a computer disc, which she promptly does, though Malkovich is completely unaware of it.

Meanwhile, Malkovich has decided on a little revenge of his own; he will write his memoirs on - of course - a computer disc, and this is where the plot kicks in. Because of the carelessness of the lawyer's secretary, the wife's disc, containing the financial information, ends up at an exercise gym, where it is found by one of the instructors, Chad Feldheimer, played as an incredibly moronic , macho fool by Brad Pitt, who gives what is undoubtedly the funniest performance of his career so far. Pitt puts the disc into his computer, and because it mentions that Makovich is with the CIA, automatically assumes that the financial data must actually be some top secret espionage information.

The always excellent Frances McDormand plays Pitt's confidante, and when she and the hunky moron decide to profit by either blackmailing Malkovich or selling the disc to the Russian Embassy, the situation gets even more complicated, not least because of the fact that Malkovich becomes psychotically nervous because he naturally but mistakenly assumes that the two gym instructors have stolen his tell-all memoirs, not his financial information.

The acting and the casting, as in all Coen brothers films, is close to perfect. If any screenwriting and directing team has a gift for this, it is them.Although Pitt's character is relentlessly stupid, Clooney plays an unrelenting womanizer who is not the sharpest instrument in the drawer either, and who, as events unfold, also becomes somewhat paranoid. Malkovich plays his usual nutjob almost completely for laughs, and Frances McDormand is lovable as a rather dimwitted but well-meaning person whose greatest desire is to have plastic surgery. Tilda Swinton contributes another of her "complete bitch" portrayals that she is so excellent at. There is never a moment when she is likeable, not even when she is in bed with Clooney.

I will not reveal any more, except to say that the final twist at the end is so completely on target at satirizing secret investigations that this one sequence makes the film worth seeing all by itself. Catch this film while it is still in theatres, if the current financial crisis allows it.