BURN AFTER READING Now Playing At Village and Ritz

A new Coen Brothers movie is a drop-everything event. BURN AFTER READING now playing at Ritz and Village.

"A blackly comic illustration of Murphy's Law, set in the Washington world of CIA espionage, and populated with a cast of delusional dunces who are a wonder to behold." - David Ansen, Newsweek

"The new Coen Bros classic that you'll be quoting ad nauseum for the next decade." - Devin Faraci, CHUD

The Coen Bros, fresh off their NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN Best Picture/Director/Screenplay sweep at last year's Oscars, take a U-turn back toward LEBOWSKI territory with this new dark crime comedy/thriller.

At the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Arlington, Virginia, analyst Osborne 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. suburbs, and seemingly worlds apart, Hardbodies Fitness 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.