Burn After Reading
Burn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It follows a recently jobless CIA analyst, Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), whose misplaced memoirs are found by a pair of dimwitted gym employees (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt). When they mistake the memoirs for classified government documents, they undergo a series of misadventures in an attempt to profit from their find. The film also stars George Clooney as a womanizing U.S. Marshal; Tilda Swinton as Katie Cox, the wife of Osbourne Cox; Richard Jenkins as the gym manager; and J. K. Simmons as a CIA supervisor.
Plot
Faced with a demotion due to a drinking problem, Osbourne Cox angrily quits his job as a CIA analyst and decides to write a memoir. Upon telling his wife Katie, she surreptitiously files for divorce and continues an existing affair with Harry Pfarrer, a married U.S. Marshal with paranoid tendencies. At the instruction of her lawyer, Katie delivers a copy of her husband's digital financial records and other personal files, unknowingly including a rough draft of Osbourne's memoir. The lawyer's assistant copies the files onto a CD-R, which she accidentally leaves on the locker room floor of Hardbodies, a local gym. The disc falls into the hands of personal trainer Chad Feldheimer and his coworker Linda Litzke, who mistakenly believe it contains sensitive government information.
Awards
Cast
- Aleksander Krupa
- Armand Schultz
- Brad Pitt
- Brian O'Neill
- Cliff Goulet
- David Rasche
- Dermot Mulroney
- Elizabeth Marvel
- Frances McDormand
- George Clooney
- J. K. Simmons
- Jeffrey DeMunn
- John Malkovich
- Judy Frank
- Karla Mosley
- Kevin Sussman
- Liam Ferguson
- Matt Walton
- Michael Countryman
- Patrick Boll
- Raul Aranas
- Richard Jenkins
- Richard Karn
- Richard Poe
- Robert Prescott
- Sándor Técsy
- Tilda Swinton
More details
| author | Coen brothers |
|---|---|
| award | National Board of Review: Top Ten Films |
| contentLocation | Washington, D.C. |
| director | Ethan Coen Joel Coen |
| editor | Roderick Jaynes |
| genre | adventure comedy drama |
| keywords | abduct belong blackmail capture cd-r compact disc cosmetic surgery date divorce lawyer drink embassy of russia in washington extradition treaty fbi federal bureau of investigation government agent interservice rivalry kill locker room married meet personal trainer plastic surgery russian embassy sneaking in |
| musicBy | Carter Burwell |
| producer | Ethan Coen Joel Coen |
| productionCompany | Relativity Media StudioCanal title=Burn After Reading Working Title Films |
| publisher | Focus Features Universal Pictures |
| recordedAt | New Jersey New York City |
| theme | black comedy spy comedy |