Review of In the Company of Men (1995) by Marco S — 02 Jul 2008

Filmmaking, like everything else, is a business--and as such, a filmmaker's future is largely dependent on the success of his films--and that success is measured, by those who do the measuring, in how many moviegoers will pack into a theater. That is why it is so brazenly audacious of Nick LaBute, in his first picture, to so assuredly alienate his audience. A movie uncompromisingly nihilistic, but not cynical, amoral, but not immoral, confrontational, but not polemic. It is a veritable examination of chauvinism and selfishness--it has no boundaries, and no agenda. It is darker than dark; but our uneasiness is not a product of shock, but of familiarity. Our laughs are reflexive--it is a public expose' or our private political incorrectness. It is sharp; Eckhart is grayly painted--a libertine, but not primitive--he is intelligent (and so is the film's humor; see: namechecking John Merrick), but, for lack of a better word, curious...

Like The Destructors if the object of revelrous rage was a human being. The film is rated R for 'emotional abuse,' a rare qualifier that I've never seen before--a film that dares us to revile it, but is more confident in its depravity than we are in our morality, so we stand, if not corrected, than humbled. How long one continues to laugh, or sympathize, is a peculiarly Dantean litmus test.