Cox, Osbourne (Burn After Reading) a pretentious, easily angered, Princeton graduate (class of ’73) who is often called “Ozzie” by close friends. He works for the CIA and lives in Washington, D.C. with his cheating wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) and often has to look after his senile, old aged, and mute father, who also at one time worked for the government. Cox is a fan of boating, drinking, and saying the word “fuck.”

The film opens at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, with Mr. Cox, then a government analyst, going to the office of Palmer Smith (David Rasche). Osbourne is informed that he is being removed from the Balkans desk of SIGNIT and being moved to a lower clearance level in the state department. Cox’s drinking problem is the reason given for the change. He refuses to take this as the real explanation, believing it to be a political move as the department isn’t open to “independent thought,” and quits. Cox decides to open his own consulting firm called the “Cox Group” in his basement and to spend his free times writing his book (“a sort of memoir”). What he really ends up doing is lying around all day drinking, sleeping, and reciting unfinished passages for his book into a recorder.

Katie wishes to have a divorce and downloads Osbourne’s computer files, including his memoir, for her lawyer onto a CD which she accidently leaves in the locker room of the local fitness club. Hardbodies employees Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Francis McDormand) call the Cox residence in the middle of the night, hoping to acquire a Good Samaritan reward. Osbourne is baffled at how the two obtained his memoirs and becomes very angry, leading to Chad and Linda hanging up on him. He meets with Chad, going by the name Mr. Black, the next day to buy back the documents for $50,000. Cox points out that Chad is committing blackmail, which is a federal crime, and then becomes very angry, culminating in him punching Chad in the face. Linda and Chad then follow Cox’s car in a high speed chase, ending with Linda hitting the back of Osbourne’s vehicle and speeding off.

Later on, Osbourne finds out through his CIA friend Hal (Brain O’Neil) that the two idiots blackmailing him work at Hardbodies and that they had taken the files to the Russian Embassy. Cox becomes all the more paranoid and confused. He goes to the fitness center to ask some questions but is asked by the manager, Ted (Richard Jenkins), to leave because he was acting like a jerk. After driving home in the rain, he finds that Katie has official kicked him out of the house and all of his things are packed in boxes on the front stoop. Osbourne is thus forced to go live on his boat, where he spends most of his time doing exercise videos.

A letter in the mail informs Cox that a check bounced due to insufficient funds. He calls the bank saying that he should have plenty of money in the account and that there is no way he could have overdrawn. He is notified that Katie had emptied his accounts. This sends Osbourne into a fit of rage and he heads, in little more than a bathrobe and slippers, off to his wife’s house with a hatchet in hand.

Arriving at his former abode, Cox uses the hatchet to knock off the door knob and break in. He then begins packing up various things, including alcohol and Katie’s jewelry. A noise from downstairs startles him and he goes down, with a gun in one hand and a drink in the other, to investigate. Ted is found at his computer desk and Osbourne, assuming that the Hardbodies employees are somehow conspiring against him (“a league of morons”), shoots him in the chest. Ted survives the shot and runs upstairs and out the front door. Osbourne catches up to him outside and, in broad daylight, chops him up with his hatchet. A CIA surveillant at the scene shots Cox, putting him into a coma which, at the film’s end, he is believed not to make through as he shows a lack of any brain function.

Osbourne Cox is played by veteran American actor John Malkovich.—Gregory Leach