The Company Men (2010)

Good movie but grossly overrated

As Good As It Gets

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Not my kind of movie, or better said not my kind of genre of movies. Financial drama's are a bit boring to watch. But this movie isn't bad if you like this genre. The cast is also great so just for that it's worth a watch. Just Ben Affleck, I don't find him a great actor, he's just average. And he has the major role so to me that was a bad choice. About the story it's a story from the modern ages, people losing their jobs while they live on a big foot. From one day to another they have a highly paid job but suddenly they can't pay their mortgage anymore. It's a classical story about people having a high living standard, with an oversized house, a couple luxury cars, expensive hobbies like golf, a bad habit of luxury dining out etc... And than suddenly they have to give up this way of living and that's sometimes too much to ask for some people. Instead if you would have lived normally they would have a financial cushion and would still be able to function normally in society even after being sacked. So to me it's all a bit boring as a story, just not my world, but it's still an okay movie to watch once, just once.

Indeed. And tough indeed. The story of excellent employees and even executive cadres that are suddenly fired because their work is subjected to the directions and tendencies of the markets that rule the companies successes or failures. People don't count at all. What counts are numbers and figures on excel reports. This is shown in this movie with truly realistic authenticity through short meaningful sequences of images, action and dialogues. The salary compensations and a few savings are spent fast. Then the fired workers cannot pay the house mortgage anymore and lose the house or they must sell it for a low price then they must sell their cars as well and they must go to live with their parents (if they still have them). When they have kids the tragedy becomes greater. They keep knocking at closed doors trying unsuccessfully to get a new job. Human relations (especially at home) get deteriorated sometimes. It ends in suicide in some cases. This movie shows a reality of our neo-liberal times and must be seen by all means since it was on of the best movies made on that year, well acted and well directed.

The Company Men is a fantastic movie with an ensemble cast. I usually do not like ensemble cast movies to this degree unless they are executed properly. This is an example of a movie that has an ensemble cast that doesn't try to overdo it. Love Actually is a movie that I would say tries to have too many things going on at once. The Company Men highlights each character for enough time to allow for an emotional attachment to each of them. The Company Men would have been a 9 / 10 for me had the story been about one of the characters involved in this film. Each one of them is good enough to carry this movie alone. That is a testament to just how good each character is even though they are all given such limited screen time. The movie had me wanting more when I was finished which is another reason it was great. My only flaw other than wanting more of one particular character was that they mention years and date the movie as a result. I would recommend this film to anyone in the mood to watch an excellent group of actors totally in their element every second they are on screen. I'm just sad I was not aware of this movie until today. I'm glad to have experienced this wonderful story.

John Wells' 2010 drama "The Company Men" came out at the right time it needed to come out…during the Great Recession. It's all about the effects of the Great Recession on the American people. As far as that aspect is concerned, "The Company Men" accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, inform us of its effects. Unfortunately, that's all it does well and what's worse, this film came out a little too late to truly make a huge impact on the audience. It doesn't help that a better film on the Great Recession called "Up in the Air" came out a year earlier. We follow three employees (Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper) who have been let go from the same corporation due to downsizing in the midst of the recession. One (Affleck) sees his life of luxury with his wife and kids deteriorate as a result of being let go and being unable to find jobs that suit his needs. It gets to the point where he might have to rely on his brother-in-law (Kevin Costner) to help him out. One (Jones) has been friends with the CEO (Craig T. Nelson) since the very beginning, but now finds this friendship challenged due to the CEO's inconsistent future plans. And the third one (Cooper) is severely struggling to find a new job due to his old age. This film basically follows the paths that these three take to get back to normal. "The Company Men" does its part at informing us of how harmful the Great Recession is to the lives of the American people. The story is told decently and maintains its focus on whom the story should be focusing on: the three main characters or at least the crucial people in each of their lives. While I wouldn't say that there were any standout performances in this picture that I could really praise, the actors do their best at taking their roles seriously and giving them the respect they deserve. The problem I had with "The Company Men" is that it's straight up boring. The characters we have to spend time with just feel bland and forgettable. There's no real complexity to their personalities and there's nothing unique about these people that I've seen in other movies. Ben Affleck's character comes to mind when naming a surprisingly one-dimensional storyline. While the story tackles relevant subject matter, it's executed in a predictable and unsurprising manner. Because the characters are dull, we're sort of watching something that keeps moving along but doesn't emotionally impact us in the slightest. We know exactly what will happen at least 10 seconds before it happens. We know what the outcomes for the characters and the future relationship between certain characters will be. We pretty much know how everything will pan out, so there's no real point in even watching this film if that's how we feel about it. "The Company Men" doesn't do anything awful besides having a predictable story and cardboard characters. If you'll settle for a film that informs at a relevant time, this does what it's designed to do. Otherwise, look elsewhere.