|
|
| Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 2
| In Ocean's Twelve, Topher Grace has a cameo where he laments his career choices, specifically how he totally phoned in his role in "the Dennis Quaid film." The picture he's referring to, which I saw just 12 hours after Twelve, is In Good Company, the latest from Paul and Chris Weitz (About a Boy).
Don't let Company's late-December release date fool you: This isn't one of those Oscar-quality projects that are dropped into theatres after Christmas just to qualify for this year's awards season. It's a predictable, pedestrian dud - one of those films in which nothing happens that a person with even low-to-moderate brain activity can't figure out in the first five minutes. What's worse, Company's story preaches the evils that are big corporate behemoths, and shows the havok wreaked by business mergers and takeovers. You wouldn't expect a picture with that kind of message to be filled with what might be the year's most obvious product placement, would you? Expect it if you see Company, which happens to be financed and distributed by an enormous conglomerate.
Dennis Quaid (The Day After Tomorrow) plays Dan Foreman, the 51-year-old head of advertising sales for a popular sports magazine. When the magazine' s parent company is taken over by GlobeCom, Dan is demoted and discovers his new boss is Carter Duryea (Grace, p.s.), a 26-year-old corporate ass-kisser, has absolutely no experience with sports magazines or ad sales. Dan has other troubles, as well. His wife (Marg Helgenberger, CSI: Topeka) is knocked up, and his daughter (Scarlett Johansson, A Love Song for Bobby Long), is transferring from state school to the less tuition-friendly NYU. These added financial burdens make Dan increasingly more and more anxious as he wonders if his position will be eliminated by the smarmy, buzzword-spouting Carter.
Carter, meanwhile, lives in an expensive but extremely cold-looking modern home with his wife of seven months (Selma Blair, A Dirty Shame). But she leaves Carter because he pays more attention to work than her. This renders Carter, who is already in over his head in his new position, rather helpless and looking for guidance in both his professional and personal life. Wonder if he'll find it in.I don't know.Dan? Maybe Carter will even strike up a relationship with Dan's daughter? Maybe she'll set him on the straight and narrow? Maybe everything will end happily? Check, check and check.
Company is, I think, meant to be an Oscar vehicle for Quaid, but his performance, while admirable in that he's playing his age, just isn't that strong compared to the pool of likely nominees (Giamatti, Carrey, Foxx, Depp, Hanks, DiCaprio, Bacon). While not exactly "called in," Grace isn't nearly as effective here as he was in p.s. or even Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!. Even Johansson fails to flourish with the weak material. File this one under Wait for DVD. And even then, you might want to wait a little more.
By : Jon Popick (http://www.sick-boy.com)
|
| | Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 4
| IN GOOD COMPANY, by writer and director Paul Weitz, the co-writer and co-director of ABOUT A BOY, is an exquisite gem of a movie, whose slow and delicate rhythms instantly call to mind LOST IN TRANSLATION, both of which happen to feature Scarlett Johansson. This time her role is a modest, supporting one that isn't very demanding, but she delivers a fine performance nonetheless. Although you'll see her as well as the film's two leads, Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace, in the posters, this is a writer and director's movie, not a star vehicle. The movie's enjoyments, of which there many, come from its sharply written script and its beautifully nuanced -- and yes -- slow and delicate pacing.
Dan Foreman (Quaid) is a soon to be 52-year-old man with a lot of unexpected changes in his life. Once a low-key vice president of ad sales at a big sports magazine in New York City, his life is in the process of being turned upside-down. He has an accidental new baby on the way, just when he thought he and his wife (Marg Helgenberger) were soon to be empty nesters. He has a daughter transferring to an expensive university in Manhattan. And he has a new boss, who is literally just half of Dan's age. Carter Duryea (Grace) is the new kid on the block at Dan's company, which has just been taken over by a media mogul named Teddy K (Malcolm McDowell), clearly patterned on Rupert Murdock. Not only is Dan's company being taken over, but his job is as well by Carter, whose previous experience wasn't in magazine ad sales at all. He rose to stardom in the wireless division of Teddy K's empire by devising a killer strategy for hawking cell phones to the 5 and under set. Hint: it's all about the right ring tone when your marketing mobile phones to people too young read. Dinosaur sounds are best. Nothing like a T-Rex's roar to get the attention of the inattentive set.
Carter is a successful rocket whose glare is awesome to behold at work, at least that's what he'd like to think. Actually, he is filled with self-doubts. His marriage of seven months to Kim (Selma Blair) went downhill after the second date, and she leaves before her character even gets partially established. Poor Carter, who is rich in money but little else, can't even get his one pet, a disinterested goldfish, to pay him any attention.
Like most people with miserable private lives, Carter pours in at the office, loving nothing better than trying to fire up his staff by calling them all in for a needless Sunday meeting. From his first meet-your-new-boss staff meeting, he is a disaster. "We need to be synchronized and synergized!" he explains the strategy to his troops, as his secret formula to boosting their ad sales by twenty percent. As the employees whisper to each other during the meeting, trying to guess who will be fired first (who won't be fired would have been a better question), he asks an employee in the back of the room if he's psyched. The surprised guy, who turns out to be the janitor, gives Carter the answer he is looking for. Carter feeds his unbounded enthusiasm and drive with non-stop jolts of java in the largest size available. Later in the story, Alex asks if he drinks coffee, to which he responds, "Normally I just hook up an IV."
The movie is full of such zingers, and I found myself laughing hard and often, albeit sometimes alone in the theater. It was as if the comedy was made just for me with every joke chosen to hit my funny bone best. But I suspect others will have the same strong affinity to this delightful and sardonic tale.
It's also quite a touching story. If you suspect that Carter might end up dating his boss's -- sorry, easy mistake -- his employee's daughter, you'd, of course, be right. And if you are going to guess that Carter and Dan might find some kinship in their awkward relationship, well, of course. The complications that ensue from Carter's relationship with dad and daughter feel honest and don't quite follow the path you might expect.
One of the movie's best little moments comes when Carter and Alex first meet romantically at a café in the village. A creative writing major, she confesses that her ability to succeed is severely limited since she is "cursed with a functional family." Carter, on the other, barely had a family in the traditional sense of the word -- which probably explains the accuracy in his self-description when he tells Alex that he is "an emotionally guarded, anal retentive asshole."
This charming and sometimes dark movie is an easy one to fall in love with. It's also one that's worth savoring again and again and is one of the best movies of the year.
IN GOOD COMPANY runs a captivating 1:49. It is rated PG-13 for "some sexual content and drug references" and would be acceptable for kids around 11 and up.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, January 14, 2004. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
By : Steve Rhodes (http://www.InternetReviews.com)
| more In Good Company reviews:
<<prev 1 2 3 4 5 next>>
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
