While watching "The Company Men" I kept wondering, what point was writer-director John Wells trying to make? Are we supposed to feel sad for the hardship that the three characters in this movie face? But then feel happy for the comebacks they make at the end? The reading I got from it was pretentious and arrogant businessmen getting knocked down a peg in the 2008 financial recession. Having to hand in their luxuries like Porsches and private jets for average living. Big deal.
The first person we meet is Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck using the same Bostonian accent he used in his other film earlier this year "The Town"), a young selfish sales executive for a major corporation GTX. He has a great job, great family and is truly living the American Dream. However things change when he gets laid off because of corporate downsizing. He finds himself giving up his material things. He's forced to take a temporary construction gig under his brother-in-law (Kevin Costner).
Meanwhile at the same company, Tommy Lee Jones plays Gene McClary and Chris Cooper plays Phil Woodward, two selfish cooperate executives who spend most of the film going to company parties, buying more office space for the CEOs and downsizing the departments. At this point in the film you ask yourself, "Why do I care about seeing rich people living prosperously?" But the good times end for them as well. They too find themselves searching for another job.
On the bright side all the actors all do a competent job. Affleck brings a certain likeability to his part. While Jones is his usual folksy self and Cooper has a knack for playing characters down on their luck (his face has tragedy written all over it). Sadly you just don't care about the people they're portraying.
It may have been different if they were Average Joe workers in a factory who are already poor and then get laid off, but it's difficult to care if high-up businessmen who get huge bonuses every year lose their jobs. Mainly because it didn't seem like they were really losing a lot. They all had families but their kids were completely out of it and their wives were either uninvolved or (as in the case of Affleck's wife) monitoring the finances.
Out of all three, Affleck's character was the most interesting. He's the only character who's going through a change -- from a businessman too much into his work to a guy that learns to appreciate the other things in life like family.
Gene's only retribution was crammed into one measly scene in which he and Bobby visit the abandoned factories of the company and he goes off about how honest work was done here and blah blah blah. And it didn't seem like he really suffered that much. Even after being fired he still lived comfortably in his mansion. As for Phil, he just sank into depression and eventually couldn't handle it.
The directing by Wells had the look and feel of a made-for-TV after school special and while some of the conversations between characters in the script were interesting it went through mood swings. Going from depression to random bursts of humor that wasn't needed. What "The Company Men" really needed was a reason to stick around for the ending.[[In-content Ad]]
