The makers of last year’s Academy Award Winner for Best Picture, Joel and Ethan Cohen, are back with another characteristically bizarre tale of mystery, murder and black comedy.

While the more atypical collaboration by the Cohen brothers, No Country For Old Men, lacked their renowned edgy humour, Burn After Reading is a return to the violent cruelty-laden dramatic black comedies that the Cohen brothers are acclaimed for (others include Fargo, Barton Fink and The Big Lebowski).

The star-studded film contains numerous actors who have become ‘regular players’ in the Cohen brothers creations over the years such as George Clooney, Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins. Brad Pitt and Tilda Swinton having previously acted with Clooney are more recent additions to the mix and John Malkovich rounds out the main cast with an angry, foul-mouthed performance.

Burn After Reading is an ensemble piece containing numerous plotlines, which cleverly weave together spawning happenstance havoc.

Malkovich is a CIA agent whose memoirs accidentally get left in a gym by a publisher’s assistant. Pitt, McDormand and Jenkins who play goofy, optimistic and shy gym workers, respectively, come across the secret manuscript files contained on the burnt CD and start scheming a way to make some quick cash.

Malkovich’s wife (Swinton) is also having an affair with Clooney. Clooney, who is obsessed with sex, meets McDormand via an internet dating service and goes from cheating on his wife, to cheating on Swinton. It is easy to see how all these stories soon intersect.

Burn After Reading reveals the ugly mess created by people’s sinful obsessions.

Malkovich, obsessed with proving himself after being fired from the CIA, soon distances himself from his wife. His drinking, anger and swearing – manifestations of his volatility – erupt into numerous tense situations with the gym employees seeking to extort him.

McDormand is a gym employee obsessed with finding a man but feels her appearance is holding her back. She believes she can only attain the perfection she seeks through expensive cosmetic surgery and greedily sees the opportunity to extort Malkovich as a fast track to getting the money she needs. Her obsession leads her into potentially deadly scenarios as she even trades information with foreign embassies.

Swinton is obsessed with achieving the perfect relationship and social standing and feels leaving her older, unemployed husband for the younger, more handsome Clooney will satisfy her.

Pitt is obsessed with exercise, Jenkins is obsessed with McDormand and all together their self-centred single-mindedness (or in Pitt’s case, mindlessness) makes them susceptible to being swept up in the resulting violence.

Burn After Reading is a timely reminder of the downward spiral that sin creates. Our obsessions can easily lead to all sorts of lust and greed. Sometimes, if pushed far enough, or if our sins are about to be bared for the world to see, violence becomes the easy means to covering up transgressions. This selfish survival instinct causes hurt and pain not only to ourselves, but also to those around us. It also entices us away from living God’s way.

I am reminded of 2 Samuel 11 where King David’s lust for another’s wife and his failure to keep his thoughts in check led to his sexually immoral action. The murder of Uriah that David orchestrates illustrates how humans, once on this self-serving continuum, can wind up using further and greater sins to simply cover up previous ones.

While David found redemption following his terrible transgression there appears to be no redemption found for any of the characters in Burn After Reading.

Without spoiling the conclusion of the film, in typical Cohen brothers dark comedy fashion, the kind of justice that people demand just doesn’t happen. Even the loose ends we all want neatly tied together simply remain undone.

It might be humourous in the context of a black comedy but if the lives depicted in the Burn After Reading were those of six real people, they would be six truly sad and lamentable lives indeed.

Burn After Reading is a reminder of how we, like so many people around us, need Christ in our lives. Only when we are obsessed with Christ can he both transform our life on earth and grant us a paradise in heaven that will be far more satisfying than all our greatest earthly desires could ever be.