Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 4 -- "[T]he brothers have conjured a crazy-quilt comic thriller that takes on our growing national stupidity in the form of a sex farce. The result is wildly funny." 09/18/2008 p.116USA Today
"This latest offering from the Coen brothers is an outlandish dark farce/spy spoof with some hilarious characters and quotable lines." 09/12/2008 Los Angeles Times
"Pitt, a newcomer to the Coen's world, is completely at ease with this material....The actor matches McDormand laugh for laugh playing a doltish accomplice who means well but is not really cut out for the espionage game." 09/12/2008 Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "BURN AFTER READING has some outstanding comic highlights -- many of them courtesy of Pitt himself. Loose-limbed and absent-minded, his hyper performance stays the right side of mannered." 11/01/2008 p.47 Sight and Sound
"[T]he dialogue pops as usual with musical idiom....[The] perfectly shifting plot mechanics hold appeal in an era wanting for screenwriting basics." 11/01/2008 52-53 Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "This is precision-built madness. Beneath these chattering lunatics and the pinballing plot lies an intricacy worthy of Kubrick." 11/01/2008 p.57-58 Entertainment Weekly
Included in Entertainment Weekly's 2008 Films Of The Year -- "[T]he Coen brothers' richest caper since FARGO. Like that film, it's an acrid thriller in which ordinary people commit desperate crimes." 12/26/2008 Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "Pitt amuses, Clooney gurns, McDormand crinkles and Malkovich steals the show." 02/01/2009 | 
