The Company Men Review

                                                          2 1/2 Nuts

Director: John Wells

The film, The Company Men, contains the stories of 3 men working for a company known as GTX. It chronicles each of their terminations from GTX and how they cope with it. The president of the company is rapacious and only seems to care about advancing his financial interests. He is responsible for letting thousands of employees go from this company just to produce money for the shareholders, and not have to give up any of his salary. Bobby, played by Ben Affleck, a salesman for GTX, is the first of the 3 characters to be fired. Losing his job comes as a complete shock.  The audience then gets to watch his financial nosedive.  Ben Affleck’s character has an enormous house, goes golfing daily, and drives a Porsche; however, once he loses his job everything changes. Soon after, Chris Cooper’s character, Phil, loses his job followed by Tommy Lee Jones’s character, Gene, the VP.

This is a fascinating film. Unlike many films that show middle class workers losing their jobs, this film shows the effect of unemployment on the rich. The effects of which are notably devastating. The film also showed how difficult it is for these men to get new jobs, because younger, equally qualified businessmen will do the same for less pay.

So, the film’s premise works, however, the execution is a tad slow. This is not a bad movie by any means however, the average ‘movie goer’ may find it boring. There is no exciting scene, no real climax besides the very end, and the entire plot line may seem a bit dull to some. Having said that the movie does show us how the recession is affecting everyone today, even the wealthy. It also shows us how, in a flash, life as we know it can fall apart.

The performances are solid by each of the main characters. The film was somewhat predictable and I found myself kind of knowing what was going to happen next.

My other concern about the film is that it may not be accurate depiction of what is really happening in unemployed ex-corporate America. Affleck’s and Chris Cooper’s characters begin to go bankrupt shortly after they lose their jobs.  Why do these men not have some sort of savings? The film seems to explain that all of the money went into their image however I’m not sure if that’s true for most of the upper middle class

In a peaNut Shell:  All in all, the film shows us how the economic decline is affecting every one. It exposes the greed of major corporations and how CEOs are willing to fire hundreds of workers just to keep their enormous salaries. The movie itself can be rather slow and uneventful, but if this subject matter interests you go see it.