Ethan and Joel Coen’s crime comedy “Burn After Reading” opened the 65th edition of the Venice Film Festival Wednesday, with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand taking over the red carpet for the premiere.

The film follows two gym teachers who accidentally stumble across and then try to sell a disc containing the memoirs of a CIA agent. John Malkovich, J.K. Simmons and Richard Jenkins co-star.

"The film talks about some incredibly idiotic people who do some really stupid things," Clooney told reporters at the film’s press conference.

Variety reports the “Michael Clayton” star also rescued Pitt from a horde of questions about fatherhood. You can read all about that by clicking right here.

But talking about the film, the Coens said, “We did a spy movie because we hadn't done one before. We could have done a dog movie or an outer space movie, but we ended up doing this.”

Here’s what the press had to say about the film:

• Todd McCarthy from Variety: “Nothing about the project’s execution inspires the feeling that this was ever intended as anything more than a lark, which would be fine if it were a good one.”

• The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt: “It takes a while to adjust to the rhythms and subversive humor of "Burn" because this is really an anti-spy thriller in which nothing is at stake, no one acts with intelligence and everything ends badly.”

• Andrew Pulver from Guardian.co.uk: “Clocking in at a crisp 95 minutes, ‘Burn After Reading’ is a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy that couldn't be in bigger contrast to the Coens' last film, the bloodsoaked, brooding ‘No Country for Old Men.’“

Well, that doesn’t sound like too bad of a start for the festival. Stay tuned for more coverage. The Venice Film Festival runs through September 6.