Chris Knipp
12-11-2010, 02:07 AM
John Wells: THE COMPANY MEN (2010)
Review by Chris Knipp
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/539/Ua97Fx.jpg
TOMMY LEE JONES AND BEN AFFLECK IN THE COMPANY MEN
Management going down
John Wells, producer (and sometimes writer) on The West Wing and ER and other good TV shows, has turned to directing for this ensemble piece about a year in the life of three men trying to survive several rounds of corporate layoffs at a big Boston-based transportation firm that began manufacturing ships and now has income in the billions and includes a branch in health insurance. This is a theme that suits the mindset of television, because it shifts from person to person and from situation to situation while depicting a series of related events. Along the way some very good points are made about how economic decline works, how it affects families and employees of different ages and pay grades.
There are other interesting recent films about the theme of unemployment. Laurent Cantet's 2001Time Out/L'emploi du temps and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2008 Tokyo Sonata both had men who pretended they hadn't lost their jobs. Silvio Soldini's 2007 Days and Clouds focused on a prosperous couple whose lives spiraled when the husband lost his job. Wells' Company Men has the strengths and weaknesses of being a more collective story. None of these movies are as witty and sleek as Reitman's ironic layoff comedy, Up in the Air, but they trade coolness for more home truth . The broader palette gives a fuller picture of the phenomenon. Because it goes to the top of a powerful corporation, The Company Men goes deeper into economic processes. But it doesn't tell a story that is quite as personal and individual. It doesn't achieve the haunting qualities of Tokyo Sonata and Time Out, or explore the stress on a family with the realism of Days and Clouds. But as a treatise on economics and class it may be more instructive than any of these others. As a focus on higher level corporate staff, it reveals almost as much as Cantnet's earlier Human Resources (1999, about a factory strike) did about the dynamics of the rank and file.
On the other hand, take a look at the players. As Bobby Walker, Ben Affleck is perfectly cast. He's the young head of regional sales, ambitious, aggressive, and, when he's the first to be let go, very angry. He has a house worth over a million, a high-end Porsche not yet paid for, membership in a posh club; he doesn't realize that these may soon have to go. As Phil Woodward, the boss's chief ass-kisser, an older man, with more seniority, a Vietnam vet who worked his way up from the factory floor, and no future for rehires, Chris cooper is just right. As Gene McClary, the craggy, non-nonsense "first employee" (AKA co-founder) and best friend of the CEO, who eventually fires him, Tommy Lee Jones is about perfect. Almost invisible in his role (and perhaps therefore best of all), Kevin Kostner is Jack Dolan, Bobby Walker's brother-in-law, a building contractor who gives Bobby a job working on his rehab of a big old house to bail him out -- an offer Bobby is insulted by at first. (The husband of Days and Clouds takes similar but more unstable work).
You kind of know that Bobby is going to find his way back eventually. His final scene has some of the high energy he displayed in Ben Younger's 2000 hot-shot stock broker scam movie, Boiler Room (that too a beautiful, and gutsier, ensemble piece about jobs and desperation). Affleck's had his ups and downs himself. He's still got it, and then some, though. He's a comeback kid who has the air of the winner about him, and yet always an edge of self-doubt. His moments of disappointment are intense and real here. You also kind of know, in fact he keeps acting it out, that Gene McClary isn't going to bow out. He doesn't need the money, but it's a matter of principle, and Jones as an actor has often been the spokesman of older values. When he delivers his speeches about working with your hands and making things when the company built ships and how that was different and better, the familiar lines still ring true and say more in this global context. Suzanne Rico, Adrianne Krstansky, Celeste Oliva, Nancy Villone, Chris Everett, and Maria Bello take some of the many women's parts, Bello representing Sally Wilcox, the ax lady who fires people, and Rosemary DeWitt, most significantly, Bobby's wife, who points out the realities of the situation that he is so unwilling to face at first. Craig T. Nelson, bloated and distant, is the CEO who takes home over $20 million in a desperate year: clearly he is the figure for whom the movie has no sympathy and need feel none.
As for Woodward (Cooper), he's the man in between, neither young and energetic like the self-doubting but still physically vigorous Bobby, nor rich and strong-willed enough to start his own business like Gene McClary. If he pays his daughter's semester fees at Brown, he won't have enough for his mortgage. He is a casualty. Bobby goes back to work at a job that excites him, with good pay, but along the way he's discovered, as the husband of Days and Clouds did, that a working class job has its soul-satisfying as well as bone-wearying side, and when he apologizes to his wife she points out that he's there now, as he never was before.
The script of The company Men can't cover everything, and the ending is a bit rushed, but it's still obviously just as good as the fine casting. Nothing is obtrusive: no pumped up music to push false drama. The cinematography is by Roger Deakins, which means that it is not obtrusive either, but is impeccable.
The Company Men opened in NYC and LA Dec. 10, 2010, elsewhere Dec. 25th is the release date, which has been changed twice by the Weinstein brothers.
Review by Chris Knipp
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/539/Ua97Fx.jpg
TOMMY LEE JONES AND BEN AFFLECK IN THE COMPANY MEN
Management going down
John Wells, producer (and sometimes writer) on The West Wing and ER and other good TV shows, has turned to directing for this ensemble piece about a year in the life of three men trying to survive several rounds of corporate layoffs at a big Boston-based transportation firm that began manufacturing ships and now has income in the billions and includes a branch in health insurance. This is a theme that suits the mindset of television, because it shifts from person to person and from situation to situation while depicting a series of related events. Along the way some very good points are made about how economic decline works, how it affects families and employees of different ages and pay grades.
There are other interesting recent films about the theme of unemployment. Laurent Cantet's 2001Time Out/L'emploi du temps and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2008 Tokyo Sonata both had men who pretended they hadn't lost their jobs. Silvio Soldini's 2007 Days and Clouds focused on a prosperous couple whose lives spiraled when the husband lost his job. Wells' Company Men has the strengths and weaknesses of being a more collective story. None of these movies are as witty and sleek as Reitman's ironic layoff comedy, Up in the Air, but they trade coolness for more home truth . The broader palette gives a fuller picture of the phenomenon. Because it goes to the top of a powerful corporation, The Company Men goes deeper into economic processes. But it doesn't tell a story that is quite as personal and individual. It doesn't achieve the haunting qualities of Tokyo Sonata and Time Out, or explore the stress on a family with the realism of Days and Clouds. But as a treatise on economics and class it may be more instructive than any of these others. As a focus on higher level corporate staff, it reveals almost as much as Cantnet's earlier Human Resources (1999, about a factory strike) did about the dynamics of the rank and file.
On the other hand, take a look at the players. As Bobby Walker, Ben Affleck is perfectly cast. He's the young head of regional sales, ambitious, aggressive, and, when he's the first to be let go, very angry. He has a house worth over a million, a high-end Porsche not yet paid for, membership in a posh club; he doesn't realize that these may soon have to go. As Phil Woodward, the boss's chief ass-kisser, an older man, with more seniority, a Vietnam vet who worked his way up from the factory floor, and no future for rehires, Chris cooper is just right. As Gene McClary, the craggy, non-nonsense "first employee" (AKA co-founder) and best friend of the CEO, who eventually fires him, Tommy Lee Jones is about perfect. Almost invisible in his role (and perhaps therefore best of all), Kevin Kostner is Jack Dolan, Bobby Walker's brother-in-law, a building contractor who gives Bobby a job working on his rehab of a big old house to bail him out -- an offer Bobby is insulted by at first. (The husband of Days and Clouds takes similar but more unstable work).
You kind of know that Bobby is going to find his way back eventually. His final scene has some of the high energy he displayed in Ben Younger's 2000 hot-shot stock broker scam movie, Boiler Room (that too a beautiful, and gutsier, ensemble piece about jobs and desperation). Affleck's had his ups and downs himself. He's still got it, and then some, though. He's a comeback kid who has the air of the winner about him, and yet always an edge of self-doubt. His moments of disappointment are intense and real here. You also kind of know, in fact he keeps acting it out, that Gene McClary isn't going to bow out. He doesn't need the money, but it's a matter of principle, and Jones as an actor has often been the spokesman of older values. When he delivers his speeches about working with your hands and making things when the company built ships and how that was different and better, the familiar lines still ring true and say more in this global context. Suzanne Rico, Adrianne Krstansky, Celeste Oliva, Nancy Villone, Chris Everett, and Maria Bello take some of the many women's parts, Bello representing Sally Wilcox, the ax lady who fires people, and Rosemary DeWitt, most significantly, Bobby's wife, who points out the realities of the situation that he is so unwilling to face at first. Craig T. Nelson, bloated and distant, is the CEO who takes home over $20 million in a desperate year: clearly he is the figure for whom the movie has no sympathy and need feel none.
As for Woodward (Cooper), he's the man in between, neither young and energetic like the self-doubting but still physically vigorous Bobby, nor rich and strong-willed enough to start his own business like Gene McClary. If he pays his daughter's semester fees at Brown, he won't have enough for his mortgage. He is a casualty. Bobby goes back to work at a job that excites him, with good pay, but along the way he's discovered, as the husband of Days and Clouds did, that a working class job has its soul-satisfying as well as bone-wearying side, and when he apologizes to his wife she points out that he's there now, as he never was before.
The script of The company Men can't cover everything, and the ending is a bit rushed, but it's still obviously just as good as the fine casting. Nothing is obtrusive: no pumped up music to push false drama. The cinematography is by Roger Deakins, which means that it is not obtrusive either, but is impeccable.
The Company Men opened in NYC and LA Dec. 10, 2010, elsewhere Dec. 25th is the release date, which has been changed twice by the Weinstein brothers.