Review of The Company Men (2010) by Chris M — 06 Aug 2013

If there is one thing to be said about John Wells' 2010 drama The Company Men, it would be that it came out at the right time it needed to come out...during the Great Recession. The reason it came out at the right time was because it was about the effects of the Great Recession on the American people. As far as that particular aspect is concerned, The Company Men accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, inform us of its effects. Unfortunately, that's all it really does well and what's worse, this film came out a little too late to truly make an impact on the audience especially considering how a better film on the Great Recession called Up in the Air came out a year earlier.

The Company Men follows three employees (Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper) who have recently been let go from the same corporation due to downsizing in the middle of the recession. One (Affleck) sees his life of luxury with his wife and kids deteriorate, as a result of being let go and being unable to find jobs that suit his needs, to the point where he might have to rely on his brother-in-law (Kevin Costner) to help him out. One (Jones) has been friends with the CEO (Craig T. Nelson) since the very beginning, but now finds this friendship challenged due to the CEO's inconsistent future plans. And the third one (Cooper) is severely struggling to find a new job due to his old age. This film basically follows the paths that these three take to get back to normal.

Like I hinted at before, The Company Men does its part at informing us of how harmful the Great Recession is to the lives of the American people. The story seems to be told reasonably well and they keep the main focus on whom the story should be focusing on: the three main characters or at least the crucial people in each of their lives. The acting in general is okay. While I wouldn't say that there were any standout performances in this picture that I could really praise, the actors do their part at taking these characters seriously and giving them the respect they deserve.

I guess the main problem I personally have with The Company Men is that it just isn't that interesting. While the actors don't do a poor job with playing their characters by any means, the characters they play just feel bland and forgettable. There's no real complexity to their personalities and there's nothing really unique about these people that I've seen in other movies, they just simply feel plain and boring. Ben Affleck's character in particular is just one-dimensional and straight up lame.

While the story does tackle relevant subject matter, it's executed in a predictable and unsurprising manner. Because the characters simply don't seem three-dimensional, we're sort of watching something that keeps moving along but doesn't emotionally impact us in the slightest. We know exactly what will happen at least 10 seconds before it happens. We know what the outcomes for the characters will be. We know what the future relationship between certain characters will be. We pretty much know how everything will pan out, regardless of how uninterested we might be. There's no real point in even watching this film if that's how we feel about it.

Does The Company Men do anything horribly besides having a predictable story and boring characters? I don't think so. It's just simply average at best. I don't think it would be too harmful if you rented it just once, but it probably wouldn't do much either. If you'll settle for a film that simply informs at a relevant time, this should do just fine. If you want something more special than just that, then you'll have to look elsewhere.