Review of The Company Men (2010) by Paul S — 28 Dec 2011

A sonnet for the times, Company Men delves (albeit a bid heavy handedly) into the current corporate, capitalistic and opportunistic system we've created, as well as it's cost on the human side of the ledger.

3 generations of men get the lens focused on them while the company they all work for slashes jobs in an effort to keep profitable and ultimately sell their stocks for an absurd amount. For better or worse you have Ben Affleck as the 30 something man in charge of east coast sales for a department of a huge corporation. He spends many a day smoozing his customer base - 3 hour lunches at fine restaurants and days spent on the golf course - all while having the requisite two kids, loving wife, large house (and mortgage), and a Porsche. His story is the linchpin of the film, which is unfortunate as his story is the most predictable and carries the least weight, as he goes from the certainty that he will find a top job immediately, to the unemployment line and moving into his parent's home as he discovers that the 2009 crash means that no-one is hiring white collar, upper management types.

You'd like to feel sorry for Affleck and his kind - but his fall from grace, while a reality check, isn't as dire as it seems - just a bit of embarrassment that the country club gang is going to have to try to ignore as they revoke his privileges and think "what a loser" of their former "golden boy". I'm sure if Affleck was one of the survivors he'd probably feel the same way.

Far more interesting is the story of Tommy Lee Jones, as the head of the ship building division and right hand man to the company's founder. The last thing he or the viewer would expect is that after a lifetime of friendship and servitude Jones would get amputated at the knees - just for calling a spade a spade and choosing not to play the high stakes game of bluff that seems to enthrall corporate America. His character shows nobility throughout which makes him someone to root for... and of course he's Tommy Lee Jones, so you're going to root for him anyway!

Jones' acting is understated and sincere, as is Chris Cooper as a middle manager getting axed while close to retirement age. His plight is what you find truly irksome about corporate America - as, at his age, he stands very little chance of getting hired, even with a boatload of experience and expertise under his belt. In one of the film's better insights, it shows Cooper as a man who defines himself by his job - he's given his life to it, and all the trappings of success don't register to him; as if they are all there just to please his wife.

It is Cooper and Jones who show the great acting chops, although Kevin Costner is fine in a small typecast role as a blue-collar carpenter. Affleck is adequate and most of the rest of the roles are superfluous, though I found Rosemarie DeWitt as Affleck's wife to be uneven - whether it was a case of acting or that she was saddled with a poor script I'll let you decide.

Really, this film had a good pace and some strong acting - but it just seemed so pat; even the ending, which showed a man willing to pay it forward to dream - while a worthwhile sentiment, it, like so much of the film, was too much about an ideal and not enough of a dose of reality, in spite of the subject matter.