Genre: Comedy, Crime
Duration: 1 hr. 35 min
Starring: Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton
Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Producer: Eric Fellner, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Tim Bevan
Distributor: Focus Features
Release Date: September 12, 2008
Writer: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
IMDB Rating: 8.3/10
Burn After Reading, a comedy thriller from Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, Fargo, The Big Lebowski), is world- premiering as the opening-night film of the 2008 Venice International Film Festival.
At the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Arlington, VA, analyst Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) arrives for a top- secret meeting. Unfortunately for Cox, the secret is soon out; he is being ousted. Cox does not take the news particularly well and returns to his Georgetown home to work on his memoirs and his drinking, not necessarily in that order. His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is dismayed, though not particularly surprised; she is already well into an illicit affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a married federal marshal, and sets about making plans to leave Cox for Harry.
Elsewhere in the Washington, D.C. sububrs, and seemingly worlds aprart, Hardbodies Fitnesss Centers employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) can barely concentrate on her work. She is consumed with her life plan for extensive cosmetic surgery, and confides her mission to can-do colleague Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). Linda is all but oblivious to the fact that the gym's manager Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins) pines for her even as she arranges dates via the internet with other men.
When a computer disc containing material for the CIA analyst's memoirs accidentally falls into the hands of Linda and Chad, the duo are intent on exploiting their find. As Ted frets, 'No good can come of this,' events spiral out of everyone's and anyone's control, in a cascading series of darkly hilarious encounters.