PLEASE NOTE THIS PERFORMANCE TAKES PLACE AT THE STEAM MILL

PRECEDED BY A SHORT

Ask Ethan Coen to explain his latest fable, and he will scratch his thinning hair and summarise its strange ponderings thus: “It is about the covert world of the CIA and internet dating.” Ask Joel Coen to unravel Burn After Reading, and he'll stroke his well-trimmed goatee and define its unusual formula thus: “This is our version of a Tony Scott/Jason Bourne kind of movie - without the explosions.” Indeed, to this previously untapped combo of inert espionage and modern dating rituals, they could add the perils of alcoholism, '70s conspiracy thrillers, computer malfunction and personal training. Not to forget sexual deviancy. In a career steeped in oddity, this is another polished example of the brothers' predilection for tossing a pile of wacky ideas and multiple movie references into the juicer to see what flavour emerges.

Following that most un-Coen of eventualities, an Oscar triumph, at first glance you might see their latest as an effort to paddle away from the threatening currents of the mainstream and back into the reassuring calm of the left bank - although, given it was made prior to the release of No Country For Old Men, that would require some nifty clairvoyance on their Brillo-haired behalf. Perhaps they just wanted to reawaken the zany in their filmmaking. Compared to the moody poetry of that classy neo-Western, Burn After Reading has the wild abandon of a punk-rock song - it's all jibs and jabs, the rope-a-dope moves of a boxer. A slighter, less obviously showy piece that will grow and grow with repeated viewing.

So what's the rumpus? Ozzie Cox (John Malkovich), a low-level data analyst at the CIA's voluminous headquarters at Langley, has quit in a fit of pique. He didn't take too kindly to being demoted. Truth be told, he doesn't take too kindly to anything. However, a disc of what appears to be his hastily penned revenge memoirs turns up in the ladies' changing room of Hardbodies Fitness Center. Naturally, personal trainer Linda (Frances McDormand), desperate to fund her forthcoming surgical work, together with her eager-beaver underling Chad (Brad Pitt), decide to sell the intelligence to the Russians. Did we mention overly horny Harry (George Clooney), currently schtupping Ozzie's wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) and soon preying upon lonely Linda through the avenue of internet dating? We should. He's relevant. All of it is played at the amphetamine pace of Raising Arizona.

Ethan, always the more talkative of the brethren, would remind us that most of the characters were written with exactly these actors in mind. Malkovich's pouting arrogance is a perfect fit for huffy clown Ozzie. McDormand's disjointed smile and genius for body-language are ideal for nervy, jabbering Linda. Swinton's snooty grace is primed for Ozzie's untrustworthy spouse. Out of the crowd, however, it's the pretty boys who enjoy themselves the most, defiantly mocking their swish Ocean's Umpteen images. Pitt uncorks his hyperactive loon, blissfully ensconced in the hollow brain-space of a gym-cute bubble-head bounding into the world of espionage like a puppy. Clooney has a wonderful line in smarm he reserves for just these Coen-arranged occasions. Harry is a true-blue sleazebag - wait 'til you see what he's got in his basement - who emerges out of the chaos as near enough the leading man.

This is precision-built madness. Beneath these chattering lunatics and the pinballing plot lies an intricacy worthy of Kubrick. The sound-editing alone is exquisite: the squeak of a wardrobe door triggering a blast of violence; the hallways of Langley reverberating to the clip-clop of fraught footsteps, rhythmically muffled by carpeting in sonic tribute to The Shining's zooming trike. Regular cinematographer Roger Deakins may have been on his holidays, but replacement Emmanuel Lubezki (a real person) proves adept at tight, shapely frames and creepy angles.

Ethan might remonstrate, but there runs a theory in certain circles that all Coen films are ultimately about American foreign policy. While it takes work to figure out exactly how that fits The Ladykillers, it is written through Burn After Reading like a stick of rock. Curiously, it's the schmoes rather than the bureaucrats in the firing line. The CIA suits (led by a too-brief appearance from J. K. Simmons) are benign, bemused and rather gormless; it's the knuckleheaded plebs who are out of control. America's troubles, it titters, are of their own making.

Ian Nathan, Empire Magazine