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Osbourne Cox (John
Malkovich) is a CIA analyst who quits his job at the
agency after being demoted, ostensibly because of a drinking
problem. He then decides to write a memoir about his
life in the CIA. His wife, pediatrician Katie Cox (Tilda
Swinton), wants to divorce Osbourne and, at the counsel of her divorce
lawyer,
she copies many of his personal and financial files off his computer
and
onto an optical
disc. The lawyer's receptionist accidentally leaves the disc at
Hardbodies,
a workout
gym. After her husband is served with divorce papers, Katie changes the
locks to keep him out of their house.
An employee of the gym, Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt),
obtains the disc from the gym's custodian. Seeing the content of the
memoir, he
assumes that it is highly classified information and the financial data
is some
sort of cipher. Along with his fellow employee Linda Litzke (Frances
McDormand), he intends to use the disk to blackmail
Osbourne; Linda wants the money to pay for cosmetic
surgery. Chad meets Osbourne, who refuses to pay and punches Chad in
the
nose. Then Linda decides to take the information to the Russian
embassy. At the embassy, she hands
the disk over to the Russians, promising that she will give more
information
afterwards. Because Linda and Chad don't have any more information,
they decide
to break into Cox's house.
Katie has been having an affair with Harry Pfarrer
(George
Clooney), a womanizing Treasury agent. By chance he has recently met
Linda
online and begun an affair with her as well. Chad stakes out the Coxes'
house
and breaks in when he sees Harry and Katie leave. Harry, however, comes
back,
finds Chad, and accidentally shoots him in the face. Linda had told
Chad to
carry no ID and cut the labels out of his clothes; when Harry sees
this, he
thinks Chad was a spy
and disposes of the body.
Days later, paranoid since he killed Chad, Harry
leaves the Cox residence after a fight with Katie. On his way to leave,
he
manages to tackle a man who has been trailing him for some time,
thinking he
was working for the CIA or some other government agency. Harry now
finds out
that the man is working for a divorce firm hired by his wife who, it is
later
revealed, has been cheating on him as well. 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.
The next morning, Harry and Linda meet in a park
and she provides him with more information about Chad's disappearance.
When he
realizes that Chad is the man he killed, he becomes more paranoid and
flees in
terror, assuming that Linda is also a spy. Linda then turns to Ted
Treffon (Richard
Jenkins), the manager of Hardbodies, who has feelings for her.
Believing
that the Russians have kidnapped Chad, he agrees to look for more
information
in Osbourne's computer. But Osbourne, finding that Katie has emptied
their bank
account, decides to break into his own house with a hatchet to take
her jewelry. Finding Ted at his computer, Osbourne shoots him. Ted
survives and
runs out of the house, but Osbourne grabs the hatchet and kills him in
broad
daylight.
The movie ends by returning
to the CIA's headquarters, where an official (David
Rasche) and his director (J.K.
Simmons) are trying to sort out what happened: Chad is dead, Ted is
dead,
Osbourne is in a vegetative state after being shot by an agent while
attacking
Ted, and Harry and Linda have been arrested. Harry was trying to board
a flight
to Venezuela,
and the director decides to let him go so he's out of their hair. Linda
promises to remain silent if the CIA will finance her plastic surgery.
The
baffled CIA agents agree to her terms, but decide that they have
learned their
lesson: they will never repeat whatever it is that they did in this
case;
though they are still not clear what it is they did or what they
learned, if
anything.
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