Burn After Reading (2008)

Directed by

Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Genre

drama film, comedy film, comedy drama, crime film, crime comedy film, thriller film

Country

United Kingdom, France, United States

Runtime

1h 36m

Rated

R

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 5,287 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A compulsive CIA analyst's private memoirs fall into the hands of two clueless gym employees. They scheme to make money off what they believe is top-secret intelligence, setting off a chaotic chain of events.

darkly comicwrysatiricalabsurdbriskcynicalsuspensefuldeadpan

What happens

Burn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy espionage film written, produced, edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It follows a recently jobless CIA analyst, Osborne 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 embark on 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 Osborne Cox; Richard Jenkins as the gym manager; and J. K. Simmons as a CIA supervisor. The film premiered on August 27, 2008, at the Venice Film Festival. It was released in the United States on September 12, 2008, and in the United Kingdom on October 17, 2008. It performed well at the box office, grossing over $163 million from its $37 million budget. Critical response was mostly positive, and the film received nominations at both the Golden Globes and British Academy Film Awards. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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