Burn After Reading
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Burn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pitt. It was released in the United States on September 12, 2008, and it was released on October 17, 2008 in the United Kingdom. The film had its premiere on August 27, 2008, when it opened the 2008 Venice Film Festival.
Quotes
- CIA Supervisor:Jesus Fucking Christ. What did we learn, Palmer?
- Palmer Smith: I don't know sir.
- CIA Supervisor: I don't fucking know either. I guess we learned not to do it again. I'm fucked if I know what we did.
- Palmer Smith: Yes sir, it's hard to say.
Plot
Faced with a demotion at work due to a drinking problem, Osbourne Cox quits his job as a CIA analyst and resolves to write a memoir about his life and career. When his pediatrician wife Katie finds out, she sees it as a justifiable opportunity to file for divorce and continue her extramarital affair unimpeded. Taking her lawyer's advice, she copies financial records and several other files from her husband's computer onto a CD.
When the CD gets left on the locker room floor of Hardbodies, a local gym, by a careless law firm employee, it falls into the hands of personal trainer Chad Feldheimer and his co-worker Linda Litzke, who mistake the numerical data in the Cox's bank records to be highly sensitive government information. After getting the data traced back to Osbourne, who thinks his memoirs have been stolen, Chad and Linda plan to give the disc back to him for a reward, with Linda planning to use the money to pay for cosmetic surgery. But when a phone call and subsequent in-person meeting with Osbourne goes horribly wrong, Chad and Linda turn over the disc to the Russian embassy, offering more information in return for monetary compensation. With no other data to give them, Linda persuades Chad to sneak into the Cox home to get more files from their computer.
Meanwhile, Osbourne's increasingly erratic behavior - aggravated in part by his encounters with Chad and Linda - prompt Katie to move ahead with the divorce proceedings. She changes the locks on their house, forcing Osbourne to move onto the sailboat they have docked on the Chesapeake Bay. With her husband out of the picture, Katie invites her lover, Harry Pfarrer to move in. A womanizing, multi-adulterous, Treasury Department employee and U.S. Marshal, Pfarrer is coincidentally also secretly seeing Linda. Chad, who was sent by Linda to find more files on Cox, is discovered hiding in a wardrobe in the Cox home by Pfarrer and is unintentionally shot dead by him.
Two days later at the CIA headquarters, an official and Osbourne's former superior named Palmer and his director learn that information from Osbourne has been given to the Russian Embassy. They are perplexed and decide to maintain observation until the situation "makes sense". Harry, burdened by keeping the day prior's events secret, gets into an argument with Katie and decides to leave the house. On his way out, he spots a man who has been trailing him for the past several days. After tackling him to the ground, Harry finds out that the man is a process server tasked with giving him divorce papers from his wife Sandy, who is having an extramarital liaison of her own. Harry is devastated and goes to see an agitated Linda, who confides in Harry that her friend Chad is missing; he agrees to try to help find him.
The next morning, Harry and Linda meet in a park, and she provides him with more information about Chad's disappearance. When Linda mentions the name Osbourne Cox, Harry figures out that Chad's the man he shot. He panics, realizes that there are strange men in the park and flees, assuming Linda is a spy. Linda then turns to Ted Treffon, the kindhearted manager of Hardbodies, who has unrequited feelings for her and been critical of Linda and Chad's scheming thus far. Believing the Russians have kidnapped Chad, he agrees to go to the Cox home to search Osbourne's computer. Unemployed and having spent the past several days living on a small boat, Osbourne becomes unhinged when he finds out that his wife has emptied his bank accounts, and, no longer having keys, decides to break into the house to get some of his personal belongings. Finding Ted in the basement, Osbourne initially takes him to be Katie's lover. He soon realizes Ted's affiliation with Linda and what he refers to as the "league of morons" he feels he has been struggling against his whole life, and fires a gunshot at him. Ted manages to get out of the house, only to be fatally attacked by a hatchet-wielding Osbourne.
At CIA headquarters a few days later, Palmer and his director try to understand what exactly happened. It is revealed that while trying to board a flight to Venezuela, Harry was detained because his name was on a hot list, Ted's body has been disposed of and the CIA are holding Linda who is promising to keep quiet about everything if they will pay for her cosmetic surgery. A CIA agent shot Osbourne during his hatchet assault on Ted and the bullet has put Osbourne in a coma. The director instructs Palmer to let Harry fly to Venezuela, saying that the U.S. has no extradition treaty with Venezuela, decides the CIA will pay for Linda's surgery and postpones considering Osbourne's situation until he regains consciousness, which is not likely. The director and Palmer conclude that they did not really learn anything from the fiasco.
Cast
- George Clooney as Harry Pfarrer
- Frances McDormand as Linda Litzke
- John Malkovich as Osbourne Cox
- Tilda Swinton as Katie Cox
- Brad Pitt as Chad Feldheimer
- Richard Jenkins as Ted Treffon
- J. K. Simmons as CIA superior
- Elizabeth Marvel as Sandy Pfarrer
- David Rasche as Palmer
- Jeffrey DeMunn as Cosmetic surgeon
- Devin Rumer as Surveillance
- Olek Krupa as Krapotkin
- Dermot Mulroney as a star of Coming Up Daisy
