As they have accustomed us over the years, the Coen brothers followed their serious movie “No Country For Old Men” with a comedy. Not just any comedy, but one that follows their characteristic and original style…

“Burn After Reading” is dark, funny and unpredictable. Which are three qualities that most comedies should have. Well, at least the “funny” part.

The film, which opens Friday, features several celebrities that haven’t been paid their regular salaries. How come? Well, we’re talking about the Coen brothers. Everyone wants to work with them. Including stars Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton. And of course, the usual Coen film stars George Clooney, Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins.

“The total cost of the film is less than the rates of a couple of the actors,” said Joel Coen.

In a conference, Brad Pitt said that he was very happy to work with the two writer-directors, as he had “been knocking on the brothers' door for a few years.”

The Coens wrote Pitt’s part with him in mind, as they did with most of the other members of the cast, and Pitt said, somewhat amused, that he was a little upset when he read the script and found out that his character was a fool.

“We think of Brad as an actor opposed to a movie star and we thought it would be interesting to see him play someone like this,” Joel said, as quoted by The San Francisco Chronicle.

The comedy, which is partly a kind of spoof on spy films, opens at CIA headquarters, where Osborne “Oz” Cox (John Malkovich) is fired off the Balkans desk. His solution to this is to increase his drinking and to start writing his memoirs.

His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is not too helpful to her husband, because she is busy having an affair with federal marshal Harry Pfarrer, who is also married.

But Cox becomes suddenly important for someone else, that is, Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), two workers at a DC gym, when he leaves his cryptic disk containing his memories at the gym. Chad and Linda think the CD contains classified information and are hopeful to sell it for a very high price.

Linda has special reasons to do this. She wants to change her life through cosmetic surgery, but her insurance company rejects them as electives. So she sees the CD as her source of money to fulfill her dreams.

This is the sixth collaboration between McDormand and the Coen brothers. They have been working together since 1984, when she starred in their first movie, “Blood Simple.” She married Joel Coen in 1993, and her role of Police Chief Marge Gunderson which the brothers wrote especially for her, in the film “Fargo,” won her an Oscar.

Brad Pitt is new in the Coen world, but he fits in perfectly, as the silly accomplice of Linda, who just can’t do anything right.

The movie is rated R for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence.