In August of 2010, I made a list of the movies I had to see before the end of the year after reading Entertainment Weekly’s Fall/Winter movie preview edition. I ranked 15 films in order. #1 was Ben Affleck’s The Town, which has turned out to be my favorite movie (as of 2011). #2 was Buried, which starred Ryan Reynolds. This movie, which I did not see in the theatre, was one of the biggest wastes of two hours of my life. And #3 was The Company Men, which starred 4 Academy Award winners. The release date of The Company Men kept getting pushed back further and further, and while its limited release date was in very late December, the vast majority didn’t have a chance to see it until 2011. By then, my list had changed based on the Oscar Buzz and the lukewarm reviews of The Company Men. I finally was able to check the movie out on Netflix. Based on the film I had seen since my initial list, The Company Men would have still made the top 15, but it would have been closer to the 12-15 range rather than the 1-3 range. To further digress into my poor list, Little Fockers was #4, Unstoppable #5, and The American #6. The movies I liked most were The Social Network (initially #7) and Blue Valentine (initially #8). The Fighter (initially #10), 127 Hours (initially #11), Love & Other Drugs (initially #13), as well as True Grit, Rabbit Hole, Black Swan, and The King’s Speech (both of which I did not even rank).

I don’t know why this movie’s release date was pushed back on multiple occasions, but I have some guesses. First and most importantly, it wasn’t great. It certainly wasn’t bad, but it was a disappointment. Secondly, it hit pretty close to home for many people at a tough time. The movie was about corporate layoffs and once-proud CEOs, CFOs, and other highly compensated vice presidents adjusting to a new way of life. The lifestyle change resulted from a layoff (some just a few years before retirement with full benefits) by a failing company that had spent years trying to build up. Thirdly, while the movie did it close to home for many Americans, many in that same group could still not truly identify with the lead characters. The laid-off men were the richest of the rich. They were highly paid executives with compensation and perks that 99% of Americans can only dream of. So rather than watching a movie about a typical American worker dealing with the painful reality of sudden job loss, we have a movie about executives with six-figure incomes trying to figure out how they will survive without their golf club memberships or their slick sports cars. We see them stick their noses up at jobs they believe they are beneath them. It’s tough to sympathize with any of them because we don’t see their intrinsic qualities while they have their power positions. The one exception might be Tommy Lee Jones’ character. I’ll talk more about this in a minute.

First-time director John Wells lacked direction with this movie. He had a smorgasbord of Hollywood A-list actors to balance, including four Academy Award winners (Ben Affleck – Good Will Hunting), Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive), Chris Cooper (Adaptation),  and Kevin Costner (Dances With Wolves) as well as an Emmy Award Winner in Craig T. Nelson (Coach). Wells might have been overwhelmed. Affleck seems to be the main star, but he almost wants to give Jones, Cooper, and, to a lesser extent, Costner equal face time. He also doesn’t seem to have a protagonist. We are supposed to feel bad for these people because they have lost their jobs. But he builds each of them up (Costner excluded) with such greed that we are almost happy when their lavish lifestyles come crashing to a halt.

Bobby Walker (Affleck) is about 15 to 20 years younger than the other lead men in the movie. He is a cocky hotshot of a salesman who believes the world is his playground. He is the first to get laid off. He is quite full of himself and refuses to believe he won’t be the first phone call a competing firm makes for his services. He doesn’t dismiss his anger towards his former employer, but his feelings towards the situation change. He becomes unhappy and quickly dismisses his wife Maggie’s (Rosemarie DeWitt – Rachel Getting Married, Cinderella Man)  ideas about selling their house for a place they can better afford. Maggie’s brother Jack (Costner) offers Bobby temporary work in his small construction company. Still, Bobby scoffs at the idea, thinking the job is well below what he would call acceptable.

Phil (Cooper) is the next to go. He handles it much more poorly than Bobby. When he’s not looking for employment, he’s drinking his afternoons away at a local saloon because his wife doesn’t want him to come home before 6 p.m. After all, she doesn’t want the neighbors to know Phil is jobless. When his depression deepens, his former co-worker Gene (Jones) offers help. James (Nelson) owns the company, and Gene reports to him. Gene is the only one  to question the practices of his boss as these layoffs begin to occur, saying things like “What we are doing is not right.” James doesn’t seem to care. His only interest is the company’s bottom line. James’ decisions regarding handling the crisis are questionable at best, but most will see what he does as wholly unethical. Wells leads us to hate James and root for Gene.

A movie about how the layoffs in almost every sector of the economy had affected the average American near the tail end of the George W. Bush administration was undoubtedly needed, but this movie was not it. This movie lacked direction. It lacked emotion. It didn’t provide characters for which you care. The acting was good, but there was little chemistry between the characters. It’s no shock that this movie earned $4.5 million at the box office. I don’t know how much this movie cost to pay its stars, but I’m willing to wager that it did not come close to making a profit. Perhaps Americans in 2010 had no extra money to see a film on this topic.

Plot 7/10
Character Development 6/10
Character Chemistry 6/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 6.5/10
Directing 4/10
Cinematography 4/10
Sound 4/10
Hook and Reel 4/10
Universal Relevance 6.5/10
58.5%