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MOVIE SYNOPSIS
Burn After Reading
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At the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Arlington, Va., analyst Osborne Cox 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 is dismayed, though not particularly surprised; she is already well into an illicit affair with Harry Pfarrer, a married federal marshal, and sets about making plans to leave Cox for Harry. Elsewhere in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, and seemingly worlds apart, Hardbodies Fitness Centers employee Linda Litzke 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. Linda is all but oblivious to the fact that the gym's manager Ted Treffon 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.
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Burn After Reading
By Steven Rea, Inquirer Movie Critic
Posted 09/11/2008
The screen reads "CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia," and the footfalls of spooks in suits resound on the soundtrack - heels clicking down the gleaming corridors like tap dancers in slow motion, or ice cubes in a glass of Scotch. » Read more
Video: Burn After Reading
Burn After Reading
By GARY THOMPSON, thompsg@phillynews.com 215-854-5992
Posted 09/12/2008
The brothers Coen start with a brilliant idea in "Burn After Reading." They take the trappings of the modern espionage thriller - the satellite zoom-ins, the black wingtips clicking crisply in a Langley hallway, the jogger on the Capitol mall stalked by a black sedan - and use them to cloak a black comedy of domestic treachery, the kind they've been making (expertly) since "Blood Simple." » Read more
Video: Burn After Reading
MPAA rating:
R
for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence
Cast:
Frances McDormand; Lenny Venito; John Malkovich; Richard Jenkins; Tilda Swinton; George Clooney; Brad Pitt
Directed by:
Joel Coen; Ethan Coen
On the web:
 
Burn After Reading Official Site
Genre:
Comedy; Drama
Running time:
01:37
Release date:
2008
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