In Good Company Review
by Susan Granger (ssg722 AT aol DOT com)December 27th, 2004
Susan Granger's review of "In Good Company" (Universal Pictures)
Writer/director Paul Weitz ("About a Boy") takes on 21st century corporate politics and restructuring with witty, thought-provoking, barbed irony despite a detour into sentimentality.
As head of advertising sales, 51 year-old Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) has propelled Sports America into the forefront of magazine publishing. Yet when it's acquired as part of a global conglomerate, he's demoted to "wing man" for Carter Duryea (Topher Grace), a 26 year-old hot-shot with no sales experience whose wife (Selma Blair) has just left him. Problem is: Dan really needs to keep his job since his wife (Marg Helgenberger) is unexpectedly pregnant with their third child and his older daughter (Scarlett Johansson) needs extra tuition to go to NYU. But there's just so much Dan can take from Carter when their personal and professional lives collide.
Although his first claim-to-fame were the raucous "American Pie" pictures, Weitz is at his best creating rich, three-dimensional characters and placing them in dynamic situations; here, he cleverly captures the competitive, anxiety-ridden ramifications of office downsizing. And his casting is superb - not only Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace and Scarlett Johansson but also supporting players like Marg Helgenberger, David Paymer, Philip Baker Hall, Clark Gregg and an unbilled cameo by Malcolm McDowell as a greedy megalomaniac who tosses around glib buzz-words like "synergy," which was the film's far-better, working title. Weitz's weakness surfaces when he abandons satire and resorts to a conclusion that reeks of conventional sit-com sensibility. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "In Good Company" is a fresh, relevant 7, making a pertinent statement about contemporary business and corporate mergers.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
