Why no talk of Company Men?

[maverick22]

The Company Men Blu-ray

The Company Men Blu-ray Review

Anyone buying this? Looks like a good movie to me. It may not have much replay value though.

[detective392]

Will be buying and have been looking forward to this movie for awhile now.

[Hunk Golden]

Not sure. This is one that totally flew under the radar and didn't make b.o. $$. There are a # of movies every year that are excellent (IMO), yet don't get much acclaim..don't make much $$. They usually get good reviews critically, but they don't find an audience. "State Of Play" and "The Mist" are two recent'ish example of movies I thought fit this description.

Maybe the bleak economic times are enough to deal with in peoples' personal lives, they don't want to see it on screen (they just want to shut their brains off and escape at the theater).

I know some of the reviews (Amazon) have given it 1-star because of the type of worker depicted in the movie. It's white collar types. People didn't like white collar workers complaining about having to give up the Porsche or the country club membership when they (the audience) can't even comprehend that world to begin with. I get that. I disagree with it, and I really enjoyed the content (heck, Costner's character was blue collar). But I do get it. People living paycheck-to-paycheck have to deal with "real life." Some snobby guy out in the wealthy suburbs should come live my life for a minute (I assume that's the mentality here).

Anyway, excellent movie. I bought it. I wanted to cancel the pre-order if the price didn't go down. The price didn't go down. It was on a separate Amazon account, and I forgot to cancel. If price doesn't drop tommorrow (and it probably won't, it'll probably just stay $20.50), I'll be bummed. Not that the movie isn't worth that (although I wish there were more features), but I don't like to pay over $20 unless it's a rare flick...a Blu with a ton of extras...or a SPECIAL edition. Oh well.

[hawaii sun]

Will be getting this one. May not be day one for me but definitely interested in this movie.

[shinseiRomeo]

Review is live:

The Company Men Blu-ray Review

[u2bonoman]

What is up with the cover? Wow, it is horrid.

Anyway, it's coming today from Netflix. Can't say I am really looking forward to it, but I was interested enough to put it in my queue.

[Todd_Gaines]

I also am getting this via NF today. I am sure it will be worth a rental.

[Variable_Star]

Originally Posted by Hunk Golden

I know some of the reviews (Amazon) have given it 1-star because of the type of worker depicted in the movie. It's white collar types. People didn't like white collar workers complaining about having to give up the Porsche or the country club membership when they (the audience) can't even comprehend that world to begin with. I get that. I disagree with it, and I really enjoyed the content (heck, Costner's character was blue collar). But I do get it. People living paycheck-to-paycheck have to deal with "real life." Some snobby guy out in the wealthy suburbs should come live my life for a minute (I assume that's the mentality here).

That's well said, and I understand that too. I didn't quite care what color collar the film focused on, but I was hoping for something more intelligent. The real meaty issues are hardly examined, opting instead for a schmaltzy drama replete with the obligatory feel good ending. All the characters are cookie cutter genre archetypes - Craig T. Nelson's character is a one-dimensional robber baron villain, Tommy Lee Jones is the corporate exec with a heart of gold, Chris Cooper is the guy whose job defines his entire existence, etc.

Worse, the film focuses primarily on Affleck, and his character arc is that he's a impetuous, elitist jerk who comes to realize after he's lost his job that he's unable to function as an impetuous, elitist jerk anymore. His character's crime isn't that he's unlikeable, it's that he's not remotely interesting.

What would've made this film engaging is something apart from a well-meaning but ultimately trite drama. Something akin to what Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps did, which is to provide a sharp glimpse at the current economic climate, particularly regarding energy concerns. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, despite the fact that it fell flat in the drama department. Unfortunately, The Company Men doesn't handle either very well. It has a killer cast and great production values, but the script is of a topical television movie-of-the-week quality.

[WJWS Channel 13:Amity]

Excellent movie we premiered it at work as part of AFI 2010 last november.
Great perfomances by everyone in the cast especially Craig T Nelson, and Ben Affleck.
A well written script by director/writer John Wells.
Ben Affleck gets a lot of flack but he really does have the ability to turn in a great performance.

[EPlay]

Saw this theatrically and thought it was quite good with a great cast. I think the ad for the DVD/Blu running on TV now is NOT indicative of the tone of the film and is misleading, though. It's more somber than the ad would imply and has a palpable sense of building desperation.

[u2bonoman]

Just watched it. Enjoyed it, but probably not enough to buy it.

[Minimejer05]

I really want to see this for some reason. The trailer looked decent, but it only opened on one screen in the MN area and it was there for only a few weeks.

[Jynxie]

Just watched it last night. Turned out to be a lot better than I anticipated. I was thinking of dreary plots with men hassling their jobs, family, etc. So much more than that! Throughout the film, I felt so much sympathy for what the men of the company went through, knowing first-hand what it feels like to lose a job and go through the hardships of finding another job and dealing with so many losses along the way.

One thing I've noticed though; people need to start living a more humble life-style. Even those who earn 6+ figures should learn to live more humbly than they do. There is no need to spend all their money on 500K+ homes, fanciful things that just clutter up a house, expensive cars, etc. If more people learned to live more modestly, they wouldn't have such a rough time in the end if things were to take a bad turn. Look at Brett Favre. The guy makes so much money in a year yet he lives on a farm and mows his own lawn.

[djgeneral]

I had this on tonight, semi paying attention. Typically, Wikipedia is great with in-depth summaries for me to fill in on important details for movies I don't totally watch...but the summary on Wikipedia isn't a very good one. Anyone know where I can find one?

[octagon]

I just finished this and it was very disappointing. Variable_Star is far too kind to Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps but is dead on about this - it's one cliche after another and none of them are particularly interesting.

It wasn't bad, exactly, but everything about it has already been done to death.

As I was watching the end I could almost see

[Show spoiler]Richard Gere mutter 'Boats...I'm gonna build boats'.

[TRH]

just watched on rental. Ehh. No way i'd buy it. Fair-to-average at best, i thought...

[djgeneral]

Summary anyone?

[octagon]

Originally Posted by djgeneral

Summary anyone?

Unemployment is bad, blue collar values are good, there are no ugly people in the greater metropolitan Boston area.

[djgeneral]

I know basically the beginning/middle/ but not the endings. Help me!!

[Show spoiler]Ben Affleck is Bobby Walker, a sales director for a global transportation company, GTX. He walks into a meeting one morning after a great golf game only to discover that not only has part of his staff been let go but his position is no longer in existence as well. The company, in an attempt to show itself as more profitable, has let go a number of people as well as two departments.

Given severance pay and the assistance of a job placement service, Bobby hopes to find a new job within days. The reality of the matter is that this is not the only company going through downsizing and he is not the only person with the same qualifications. While his wife Maggie (Rosemarie DeWitt in a fantastic performance) supports him in his search, she has a more realistic viewpoint. As Bobby continues to search for that elusive dream job, Maggie is the one that makes the tough decisions and keeps the family together.

But that's only one story going here. Another involves Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper), a long time employee in his fifties who began with the company on the manufacturing end when they built cargo ships. Phil starts fearful that he will be let go next. With a daughter in college and a luxury home to care for, Phil's fears begin running his life.

The third story, thus making it company "men", revolves around Gene McClary (Tommy Lee Jones), another long time employee and Bobby's supervisor. It's Gene's departments that have been eliminated and he feels for the workers under him. Having started the company with long time friend James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson), Gene thinks the company should be more than just figures. It should have an ethical responsibility to its employees as well. Needless to say the company disagrees.

Ben Affleck, the main character, is a Sales Executive who makes about $160k a year and spends like he makes twice that much, with a Porche in the driveway and a house that is probably worth close to a million in a good market. Chris Cooper is one step above Ben on the job food chain at the same company, a man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, coming from the factory floor all the way up to a director level position within his company. Despite having thirty years in, he too finds himself out the door with the latest cuts and is having even a harder time coming to grips with this new jobless existence than Ben. The fact that no one seems to notice that his life "is over" as he puts it, is the worst part of it. His wife makes him stay out of the house until six at night so none of their neighbors realize he is unemployed and he is still trying to figure out how to pay for his daughter's senior trip to Italy even though if he pays for that, he won't be able to make the mortgage. Tommy Lee Jones is a VP in the same company and the boss of Ben and Chris's characters. As one of the founders of the company, he is only person who can tell the CEO, played by Craig T. Nelson, that he is wrong for cutting all the jobs just to appease the stock holders, until he too is cut. His post job loss struggles are not of a financial sort, but more related to the revelation that he had lost his way as a "creator" of tangible things, like the ships his company used to build-something that he and the people who worked for him could point at and be proud of.

[123kid]

Does anyone know if the canadian release is region free?