User Reviews

Sometimes it takes a real good movie about a particular topic to notice that there are no real good movies about a particular topic. The corporate office is one of those topics. Millions of us commute varied distances five days a week to plop ourselves in an office or cubicle and work in front of a high powered computer to collaboratively work towards a corporation's yearly objectives. Yet for all the hundreds of millions of us that go through this process on a daily basis, there have been so few movies that have captured the stresses, the backstabbing and the emotional baggage between both employee and employer. Hollywood has tried to make light of the office atmosphere with such tripe fare as 9 to 5 and Two Weeks Notice, but the offices that were generally portrayed were filled with high-end furniture, fantastic looking staff in incredibly expensive clothing and bosses that were either reviled or secretly sexually doted on. The lack of a realistic depiction of this environment was in the forefront of my mind when I lined up at the ticket counter for In Good Company. Written and directed by Chris Weitz (American Pie) and starring Dennis Quaid (Flight of the Phoenix) and Topher Grace (Win A Date With Ted Hamilton), I didn't expect much in terms of an office environment that I could relate to. To my surprise, I was wrong. In Good Company starts with the takeover of a sports magazine by a large asset-sucking conglomerate. As with any takeover, tensions and rumors run high amongst the staff of the magazine where the advertising sales have been headed by Dan Foreman (Quaid) who himself has devoted 23 years to the organization. But with one swoop of the pen, the magazine is purchased and Foreman loses both his position and corner office to Carter Duryea (Grace), a 26-year old suit that has aspirations of kicking corporate ass without taking names. Dan's initial shock over the situation is only overshadowed by his complete astonishment of working for someone half his age with no previous advertising sales experience. He has a family to support – kids to put through college and leaving his post at age 51 for moral issues is not part of the future equation. On the flip side of the coin, there is Carter, the young fish out of water that openly admits to a stranger on an elevator that he has no idea what he is doing. But it's a chance of a lifetime. An opportunity to give himself the life he always wanted - fortune, fame (in the form of senior recognition) and acceptance. With unsure eyes, he gains confidence in a development strategy. A career is born. But things go downhill for Carter much faster than his new wingman Dan. His dream Porsche gets smashed before pulling out of the dealer's lot and his wife leaves him on the same day. Carter decides therefore to live out of the office until a rhetorical and sarcastic invitation is offered by Dan to have dinner with his family. It is during Carters' introduction to the family that the chemistry between Dan's young daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson) and his new boss sparkles into a brushfire. When the two accidentally meet in the city weeks later, the relationship goes from a youthful infatuation to a full-blown romance. And this is where writer/director Weitz really impressed me. Both stories, that of the uncertainty within the office and the relationship between Carter and Alex unbeknownst to Dan are so strong and interesting that you can't put a label on which of the two is actually the sub-plot. Weitz is able to both stories and intertwine their relationships without having one feel like it is simply a crutch for the other. This may sound easy, but think of all the sub-plots in movies you've seen this year and how secondary story lines are there simply to either give an actor a bigger role or to stretch out the running time without adding value to the end product. In Good Company has many good points. The acting by the leads is top rate and the Grace and Johansson paring could end up being the Hanks/Ryan of the new millennium. These two above average youngsters took roles that may even have read cliché on the script pages and made interesting, vulnerable characters that seemed to grow years during the films 109 minute running time. But what I noticed most was the bit characters in the film and how well Weitz kept them real and founded in real emotion without going over the top for purposes of an extra laugh or dramatic moment. The office is filled with characters of different colors and sizes and they react to the downsizing with expected anxiety. They wonder what they will tell their wives. They wonder how they will support their families. And they leave in a fit of rage, feeling betrayed and under delusional impressions that the company will soon learn they have made a mistake. In Good Company is one of the best office setting films since In The Company of Men. Big recommendation.

When a famous sports magazine is sold to a huge corporation, the twenty-six years old executive Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) is assigned to be the boss of the fifty-one years old sales executive Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid), making him very upset. When Dan's older daughter has an affair with Carter, his world upside down.

"In Good Company" is a surprisingly good movie, indeed a tale about the contemporary labor relationship, with corporations and their offspring –that sort of person that steps in others to be promoted, employees, unemployment and family. The plot mixes comedy, drama and romance, and due to the wide range of age of the well-constructed characters, the viewer will certainly identify himself or herself with one of them. There is the middle-aged executive, afraid with the possibility of losing his job, and the insecure young executive, afraid of his position and responsibilities; the pregnant mother and her concern with her family; the daughter that joined the university, with the family needing a second mortgage to pay for her education; the servile flatterer, the gossiper, therefore, many ordinary people and situations that each one of us may face in the office or in our personal live. The conclusion, with the romantic pair following independent paths, is unusual in a traditional romantic-comedy, but it was a plus for me. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Em Boa Companhia" ("In Good Company")

What has happened to critical thinking if an alarmingly slight, paper-thin, numbingly predictable, cliché-ridden movie like "In Good Company" gets glowing reviews and a collective rating of 7.1? Before I go any further, yes, I realize this comment will be spitefully rated as not "useful" because I don't agree with the majority, but I think I'll go ahead and contribute my two cents just the same.

It's mystifying what went wrong because it seems to have a lot going for it: it was made by the folks behind the excellent "About a Boy," it boasts what would seem to be a very topical, timely premise of a 26-year-old hot shot not only replacing the 50-something old pro as boss, but also secretly dating his daughter, and it stars fine young actors Scarlet Johannson and Topher Grace, and rugged, reliable Dennis Quaid.

But where "About a Boy" explored its subject matter, "In Good Company" skates over it, where "AAB" spurned clichés, "IGC" clings to them, and where "AAB" developed its characters, "IGC" stunts their growth.

You want clichés? Where do I start? Let's see – how about Selma Blair as Grace's bored, bitchy wife who wants out of the marriage less than 20 minutes into the film even though her golden boy husband has just gotten a major promotion and is "being groomed"? If you're going to make the wife that two-dimensionally detestable – a shamefully transparent script-writing device to make the lead more sympathetic – at least make her early exit funny or interesting or memorable. But Blair isn't even granted that – she just acts like a zombie in her first scene, then packs her suitcases in the second, perfunctorily delivers the news that she doesn't love him anymore in a dismally unimaginative scene, and walks out the door. A smart film would have given the wife some humanity, some hint of a reason why these two people were attracted to each other in the first place, but this isn't a smart film, and so she's unceremoniously dumped from the story, having served her ignominious purpose, never to be heard from again. (And you get the feeling that Blair the actress couldn't be more thankful)

You've got the two-dimensional, soulless corporate sleaze bag who fires people with glee, insults Quaid to his face, kisses up to the head honcho, and even recruits a ringer for the company basketball game. Gee, do you think he represents what Grace is on the road to becoming if he doesn't wise up?

There's another throwaway scene early on where Quaid's youngest daughter gets a phone call from a boy, Quaid picks up the extension and tells the boy that if he ever offers alcohol or weed to his daughter, he'll hunt him down and have him neutered.

Are there people out there who actually find this funny? That's like a bad line from some third-rate sitcom.

Later, Quaid takes it upon himself to tell two longtime coworkers that they've been fired, though it's actually Grace's responsibility. Here, I'm expecting the movie to perhaps redeem itself, to think of some inventive way or angle to approach this pivotal moment and break out of its narrative straitjacket. But no, more clichés. A grave Quaid tells them they're being let go, says he's really sorry, gets chewed out by the angry coworker who storms out, and is made to feel guilty by the other. Can you say "boring"?

And yet, the reviewer for the San Fran Chronicle gushes that the movie boasts an unusually literate script for a Hollywood film! Oh, yeah, Grace repeatedly telling Johannson how beautiful she is and her replying "thank you" is literate dialog? Or the two of them meeting for dinner and Johannson dully informing him that she has a class at 3:00? Or the obligatory restaurant confrontation scene where Quaid finds out they've been seeing each other and slugs Grace? But not before we get that golden, quotable line from Grace that has so seldom been uttered in the history of the cinema, "It's not what it looks like. Let me explain."

Earlier, the morning after being seduced by Quaid's daughter, Grace runs into Quaid and acts nervous and jumpy around him. Could have and should have been a funny moment but it isn't because it seems like Grace is winging the lines and the lines aren't funny. There are quite a few moments like this throughout the film where the tone is flip and lighthearted, and you keep waiting for a funny punch line that never comes. It's almost as if director and writer Weitz thinks that by stripping all of the best jokes out of the film, he'll be more likely to be considered a serious film maker.

And that brings me to the problem at the root of the film. Grace and Johannson. They never connect as a couple, primarily because Johannson's character is embarrassingly underwritten. There's almost less to her than there is to the movie. She's growing into her beauty, attends NYU, loves her dad but cherishes her newfound independence and is studying creative writing – and that's ALL we ever get to know about her. She has no quirks, no edges, and when she breaks up with Grace, we wonder why, because there seems to be absolutely nothing else going on in her life. She seems to only exist to have Grace fall in love with her. Couldn't she do her creative writing while Grace is admiring and commenting on her great beauty and just look up every so often and say thanks?

I won't even go into the hopelessly anticlimactic ending which unfolds with all the drama of a shrug. If you're interested in seeing a good movie about the workplace, try "Patterns" or "Clockwatchers." "In Good Company" is a limp sitcom pilot masquerading as a feature film.

Bottom line, good. Not great, or "best picture of the year" but a good film with some excellent acting by all involved, especially Topher Grace. My one criticism might be the overbearing music and musical video interludes—"Here is the music to show that he is sad"… "Here is the music to show that he is Lost". Didn't work. Don't get me wrong, Barry Levinson in "Homicide Life on the Street", I thought always did a good job at using music to convey emotion when words do not suffice. But Paul Weitz is no Barry Levinson. Perhaps a few more jobs under his belt and it wont be so awkward. But then again, it could have been some studio stooge sent to "retail it up" and not really his fault.

Quaid I thought did a good job at conveying his character's awkwardness with having a boss half his age and none of his experience (There are some great lines scattered throughout that I wont spoil here). Add in that he is at that age where he is too young to retire and too old to start again you get a setting that is all too familiarly frightening to many of us. In a business world where buzz words, gimmicks and youth obsession are too often substituted for experience and wisdom, Weitz successfully created an appropriate emblematic figure in Carter Duryea. Almost "Soviet" in his unquestioned beliefs, he goes through a mostly believable transformation that ends appropriately, and not as Hollywood sap.

For Hollywood, this is a very good film. For the world of film in general, just good.

Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) is a man with goals. At 26, he is heading his mega-companies cell phone sales, and is being groomed for bigger and better things. A golden opportunity is handed to Carter when his company acquires another mega company resulting in his placement in the recently acquired Sports magazine division.

The Sports publication is seen as the jewel of the newly acquired company, and even though he has zero experience with selling magazine advertisement, Carter is sure he can meet the lofty goals he boss has set.

At what should be his greatest moment, carter is troubled as his 7-month marriage to Kimberly (Selma Blair), is falling apart largely due to his workaholic nature and his inability ever to stop thinking or talking about work even when he is on vacation.

On the other side of the spectrum from Carter is Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid), a father of two daughters and devoted family man, who has been a salesperson at the magazine for twenty years and until the arrival of Carter, head of the department. At 51, Dan is feeling his years as the younger and ambitious Carter seems to be his polar opposite as well as a reminder that his best years may be behind him. Further complicating matters is that Dan's wife Ann (Marg Helgenberger), is pregnant with their third child at a time when they both thought children were past them.

Despite their differences, Dan and Carter work with one another, despite conflicts over issues ranging the future of the company to planned layoffs of staff personally picked years ago by Dan. One day after inviting himself to dinner at Dan's home, Carter meets Dan's college aged daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson), who although only 21 catches the eye of Carter.

Months later a chance meeting between Alex and the recently divorced Carter gives rise to a friendship/romance between the two that causes Carter to question his life and envy the family life Dan has been able to create and maintain over the years.

Naturally Dan would not approve of the relationship between carter and Alex so they must keep this a secret as there is enough tension in the workplace due to the ever changing business dynamics.

What follows is a touching, funny, and at times bittersweet look at life, love, business, and friendship that does a remarkable job of making the characters not only real, but sympathetic as for the most part, there are no bad people in this story, only those who are confused and unsure about life.

The strength in the film is mixed well between a good script, solid direction by Paul Weitz, and solid performances by all the leads. The pacing of the film is perfect as it never seems rushed and does not drag in parts. Even when two characters are having a simple discussion over how to best approach a client, the film always holds your interest. It was refreshing to see a movie that did not take the easy way out and try to wrap everything in a pretty bow at the films end, but rather like life, left new opportunities and directions as possibilities as after all, that is what life is.

There is also a very good message to the film about what is really important in life and the need to have priorities rather than title and position as the real measure of success is happiness, security and love rather than position and material goods.

Easily the best film of 2005 and one of the better films in recent memory..

5/5 Gareth Von Kallenbach sknr.net + Syndicated Publications.

By the time the 2004 Oscars went up, this entry wasn't even nominated in every list, but I know this has something to say.

Dennis Quaid plays a common magazine salesman exec, interwining his common goal when his company has been bought by some hotshot global conglomerate, her wife getting pregnant at her 50's, her daughter wanting to study at an expensi...I mean, exclusive school,...and his authority being replaced by a new boss whose half his age and looks silly in organizing business.

The mixture of these spices contrasts up with his belief in his own sanity, ranging form decisive measures at home up to the office and his clients. Seldom I had watched a movie that intelligent, specially upon putting relationships with his new boss (which you need to watch this movie how he hated him more as the story develops). The character ideas are well-acted and good. I was impressed with the concept of the movie. Even the ending seemed right and hopeful.

I hope you try this movie. Well, it's not really a great movie like Lawrence of Arabia, but at least you may try it in its own uniqueness of story.

I had mixed feelings after viewing this: on one hand, it was light and entertaining, but on the other hand it was, like many romantic comedies, based almost wholly on deception. The girl was deceiving her father, the guy was deceiving the girls' father; father pretends to be of noble character and trashes new employer, who is (suprise, surprise) deceitful; father deceives old client (he answers a question dishonestly in order to win back a block of business). And I totally did NOT understand the whole sex thing ... what in the world was THAT about? Girl meets boy. Girls spends 20 minutes with boy. Boy declares girl is the answer to all his problems and he has NEVER met ANYONE like her in his LIFE. (Oh, puhleeeeeeeese.) Girl seduces boy. Boy finds true love. Girl dumps boy. WHAT? Who was this part of the plot line written for? Twelve year olds? It honestly would have been a decent plot line without some of the deception and all of the sex. I liked the part about Quaid being a mentor to this kid who had a non-traditional childhood and was struggling to find his way in the world. Quaid puts his own personal hurt aside in order to help out a young guy who's constructed a cocky exterior to cover up some hurts and vulnerabilities. That was touching, and Quaid played it very well.

And Scarlett Johansen ... who in the world is she? She has about as much passion as a paper clip. It seems to me that the new Hollywood is churning out actors who are so determined not to overact that they are underacting. Or un-acting. I dunno.