Friday, January 21, 2011
PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME
Friday, January 21, 2011
MOVIE REVIEW
The Company Men
Right Now, These Men Have
Company, And Plenty Of It
Tommy Lee Jones and Ben Affleck star in John Wells' drama "The Company Men",
opening nationwide today.
The Weinstein Company
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Friday,
January 21, 2011
"E.R." creator John Wells writes and directs the drama "The Company Men".
The film arrived in theaters across the U.S. today after a brief
Academy-contending run on both coasts last month. Mr. Wells' film is not
so much a party pooper as it is a harsh reality you fled to a theater to escape
from. The Weinstein Company pulled this movie from its December release
slot, likely knowing of its anticipated effect.
Meet Gene (Tommy Lee Jones), Bobby (Ben Affleck), Phil (Chris Cooper) and Danny
(Eamonn Walker). They work at a company run by James (Craig T. Nelson).
One by one they fall like dominoes in an Agatha Christie mystery. And then
there are none. Some of the men are shunted unceremoniously from a
position they've held longer than the person firing them from it has been alive.
Each of the jettisoned parties tries to climb out of a hole. Relationships
change. Two have been best friends. Bobby's wife Maggie (Rosemarie
DeWitt) stays home with their son and daughter. The pressure is on.
Mortgage payments have to be made.
Mr. Wells' feature film debut is not a poor one. The film accurately
captures the despair and devastation of sudden job loss. Identity,
relevance and self-esteem are questioned. Manhood, womanhood and family
are tested. You identify strongly with these fired workers' plights.
The tenuous financial stability. That sudden nothingness. All of us
have been there. It feels like you have been to hell. You are stuck
there until your circumstances change.
For all its grimness, the fault of "The Company Men" lies in a message implying
that losing your job isn't necessarily the worst thing, but rather one of the
more opportunistic events that can happen to you. (Well, it tests
character.) You have an opportunity to get another job. The film
isn't literally saying there's a long-term upside to losing your job
(although sometimes there is), but that's the overall impression I was left
with.
Mr. Wells' film has its clichés. One character chews out a job interviewer
in take-this-interview-and-shove-it style. "The Company Men" affords this
as a way for the audience to vent vicariously at the onscreen powers-that-be to
generate release-valve comedy. Alas, this particular instance of snarky
isn't funny, just sad.
The performances from Mr. Jones and Mr. Cooper are well-rendered. Like Mr.
Jones, Mr. Cooper's ability to portray wrenching expressions and emotional
heartache remain exceptional. When you watch him you can't help but think
of his work in "American Beauty" and the depth of much of his other work.
Mr. Cooper's Phil is a lifer. Phil's cynicism is the kind many of us
harbor in difficult situations like these. As stifling as cynicism is, you
can't blame Phil for his sentiments. We understand him.
But I didn't understand this movie. It distracted me from itself. I
wondered why I was repeatedly being treated to discreet but telling shots of Ms.
DeWitt's Maggie in super-tight jeans, specifically shots of her rear-end in the
frame. Why? I'm unsure whether Mr. Wells did this deliberately.
As much as women in decent films are smart, beautiful and pleasing to the eye,
when they're in otherwise non-sexual-themed films solely for anatomy placement
it's difficult to take that film seriously. As despairing and real as "The
Company Men" is, its authenticities are strictly limited to its job loss and
backstabbing scenarios. I wasn't turned off by those scenarios or how they
were represented, but I was by the gratuitous aspect of most everything else.
Kevin Costner as Jack and Ben
Affleck as Bobby in John Wells' drama "The Company Men".
The Weinstein Company
Mr. Wells seems to overdramatize character sacrifices to make points about the
aches they are feeling. Sometimes those points feel forced. Other times, some actors (specifically Mr. Affleck) don't
bore deep enough to sell their situations. In this film the normally-adept
Mr. Affleck seemed to be going through the motions.
There's something less sympathetic these days about seeing upper-class people on
the down-and-outs. Big mansions. Granted, I felt the pains and
saluted Gene's hard-boiled earnestness. But I want "Ironweed"! I
want no-hopers being portrayed. The working class stiff. I want
those impoverished characters from "The Full Monty"! Most Americans who
will see the film won't be in the income-earning bracket these poor souls are
in. Perhaps that shouldn't matter. Maybe it should.
Newsflash: "The Company Men" isn't "Full Monty" entertainment, but it doesn't do
as much with its potential as it should. As a result, it often feels as
insignificant as its ending does hokey, even if the movie's events merit it.
Another of the film's problems are its anachronisms. At one point you hear
a voice from a television in one character's home saying something to the effect
of, "today President George W. Bush is considering implementing another stimulus
recovery package."
This was actually announced in October 2008.
Prior to this, near the film's start Gene is asked about the projections for
"fiscal year 2011". The film is set in 2010, and there are timeshifts
bouncing it from pillar to post, like Doctor Who's time-travelling tardis.
Or the Delorean in "Back To The Future". Or that
"Hot Tub Time Machine".
Kevin Costner is enjoyable as Maggie's brother Jack. His brusqueness and wry
humor is refreshing amidst a dour atmosphere. Jack's a construction
company owner, and he believes the grass is greener on the other side.
When I saw Jack I thought of Sidney Poitier's Homer character in "Lilies Of The
Field": "I build a chapel. You build a chapel. We build a chapel."
Misery may love company, but unemployment breeds misery. "The Company Men"
tries but fails to make significant inroads for nearly two hours -- longer than it
should run. Some of its events are memorable, but the film itself isn't.
With: Maria Bello, Patricia Kalember, Suzanne Rico, Nancy Villone, Kathy Harum,
Celeste Oliva, Sasha Spielberg.
"The Company Men" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America
for language and brief nudity. The film's running time for one hour and 49
minutes.
FOLLOW
SUBSCRIBE TO THE POPCORN REEL MOVIE
REVIEWS RSS FEED
