Clooney Studio | George Clooney | Burn After Reading

About The Movie : Burn After Reading (official synopsis)

A dark spy-comedy from Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen. An ousted CIA official’s (Academy Award nominee John Malkovich) memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise gym employees intent on exploiting their find.

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More Burn After Reading plot details

Malkovich is Ozzie Cox, a fired CIA vet who takes his revenge by writing some inflammatory memoirs and then loses them. George Clooney is a fellow spy investigating the matter, who meets Francis McDormand via computer dating, who runs a gym where Brad Pitt works. (source)

George Clooney on the movie and his role: "It's about a C.I.A. guy who's writing a book and he loses the disc. I'm not the C.I.A. guy, but I'm a guy that goes around killing people. It looks really fun. This will be my third idiot -- [the Coens] call it my trilogy of idiots." (source)

Joel Coen on the movie: "The film is about the culture of the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] and the culture of physical fitness in Washington, D.C., and what happens when those two worlds collide. And it's also about Internet dating." (source)

Ethan Coen on the cast: "John Malkovich is a signals analyst at the CIA who gets fired at the beginning of the movie because he is an alcoholic. Fran is the manager of a gym in Virginia, and Brad is a trainer at the gym." (source)

John Malkovich on the movie and his role: "It's a really funny script in my opinion. An inter-related black comedy of manners, set in Washington, D.C., but not particularly involved at all with the politics. No-one in this film is very good. They're either slightly emotionally or mentally defective. Quirky, self-aggrandising, scheming. Nobody's particularly bad in it, but the guy I play just has a very bad drinking problem. He's an analyst in the CIA, fired because he has a drinking problem. It's a good cast, funny people, everybody has a good part and kind of unexpected ones." (source)

Tilda Swinton on working with George Clooney and the movie: "[Compared to Michael Clayton] We're even more horrible to each other this time. In fact, it was quite sweet; on the last day of shooting he said, 'When are we going to make a film together when we're nice to each other?' "I'm very happy to shout at him on screen. It's great fun. [Burn After Reading is] a kind of monster caper movie. All of us are monsters -- like, true monsters. It's ridiculous. It's much lighter than 'No Country for Old Men.'" (source)

Principal Cast

George Clooney............ Harry Pfarrer

Frances McDormand..... Linda Litzke

Brad Pitt...................... Chad Feldheimer

John Malkovich............. Osbourne (Ozzie) Cox

Tilda Swinton................ Katie Cox (Osbourne's wife)

Richard Jenkins............ Ted Treffon

Kevin Sussman.............

Elizabeth Marvel........... Sandy Pfarrer (Harry's wife)

Principal Crew

Directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen.
Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen.

Produced by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen.

Executive-Produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robert Graf.

Associate Producer (post) David Diliberto

Other Information On Burn After Reading

UK Release Date September 5 2008

USA Release Date September 12 2008

Official Site

Trailer

MPAA Rating

Premiere

Filming Locations New York (mostly Brooklyn), Paramus (NJ) & Washington D.C.

Studio Focus Features

Region 1 (USA/Canada) DVD Release Date

Region 2 (UK) DVD Release Date

Other Contrary to a report published Oct. 22 2006, the movie is not based (loosely or otherwise) on Stansfield Turner's "Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence." This was clarified (somewhat late) in an interview published Nov. 21 2007.