Starring: Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper
Director: John Wells
Writer: John Wells
Duration: 104 minutes

2 out of 5 stars

If the world loved 100-minute infomercials that were watered down and predictable, The Company Men would be the most powerful film of this or any other year.

Hold on. You sense my caustic humour. This is not a terrible movie, just an irritating one. It’s like being let go, going to the bar afterwards and finding out all they had was water. Not good enough.

It has all the parts there for a good movie. Strong leads (Chris Cooper, Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones to name a few), a sympathetic and very sensitive context and a director, John Wells, who’s just come off television.

He’s fresh, confident and not spoiled by Hollywood yet. I liked how The Company Men does illustrate facets of sitcom: it’s incredibly nuanced and well-thought of as for themes.

Through Bobby Walker’s (Affleck) story in particular, the film discusses the erosion of material goods and our wants to remain valuable. Of course, as Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps told us, these are desperate times requiring desperate measures. But I also enjoyed how that film showed the changing lanes of economy; how the recession was accompanied by technological advancement. The Company Men does not delve into the American economical edifice, it lingers in its own niche of expired themes we can read in the papers.

The Company Men doesn’t look at simple men or common citizens. These are plutocrats; men who had it easy, worked and had riches but now are nobodies. Without their jobs, who else were they and where do they belong? It’s a frightening thought. Maybe that’s why some choose to give up and others to give in.

I wouldn’t say this is a moving movie, I’d say there are moving moments. When a character tries to defend his golf membership, we could scoff at his callous complaint or nod in recognition that it hurts anyone who loses their pride. When one is having an affair with another, we can call it cliché or we can call it the way of the world: just another man trying to stay alive in the economy. It ends badly for him.

None of these guys really make it. The company men accompany each other in failure, but the movie associates. I was not exactly bored just vexed by the tedious montages of Bobby helping his blue-collar brother-in-law (Kevin Costner) that felt like a crass infomercial.

The episodic flow is repetitive, unremarkable and disconcerting. And you know you are in trouble when the final shot is a nice-comfy pan away from the happiness and out into that crazy world out there. It only worked in Babel.

The Company Men is just water. It explores some themes, does it adroitly, but fails to be important, just self-important. When Affleck reassures his son he will get it all back, you don’t get teary, you get that warm and underwhelming taste of ‘generic.’ Then it becomes all sitcom, American optimism through the ages and a final product that begs to be downsized.

The Company Men plays at the Screening Room starting Feb. 25, see moviesinkingston.com for ticket times.