A triumph for the blue-collared film, “The Company Men,” follows the lives of three men after the Boston-based company they work for, GBX, distributes a series of the all so dreaded pink slips.
The stellar cast is lead by none other than bean-town native, Ben Affleck, who plays Bobby Walker, a confident, up and coming vice president of sales at GBX and is blind sided by his termination at the company.
Even though he was offered a generous severance package, Bobby Walker is fuming mad.
One of the movies more dynamic scenes takes place when Bobby returns to his spacious suburban home. His wife (Rosemarie DeWitt), alarmed by the early arrival of her husband, questions Bobby and after dodging a series of questions quite strategically, Bobby finally admits that he has been fired. Lowering his head in defeat, Bobby Walker, after losing the ability to provide for his family, is officially a broken man.
Playing Walker’s co-worker is the astounding Chris Cooper. Although he was fired a few weeks after Bobby Walker, Cooper’s character Phil Woodward, who is twenty years older than most of his associates, seems to have taken his termination much worse.
“The Company Men” makes the point that age is a major factor in the workforce and to his dismay, the movie uses Woodward as its catalyst. Phil’s situation is quite comical at times.
At one point in the movie he admits he dyes his hair to look younger, but overall the audience witnesses Woodward’s severe mental breakdown. Without his job, Phil has basically lost his vitality. His job was his life,and even though he committed his past 27 years to GBX, the company fired him without a second thought.
The second in command at GBX, and perhaps the most surprising of terminations, is the company’s co-founder, Gene McClary, played by Tommy Lee Jones. McClary and his college roommate, James Salinger, started GBX but Salinger has lost his virtues and attitude that propelled the company to success.
Now, Salinger is only concerned with the bottom-line and will do anything to keep his shareholders happy. “The Company Men,” is quick to point out the exuberant lives that company executives live while their workers are being axed. McClary, who is constantly butting heads with Salinger throughout “The Company Men,” eventually loses his company in the process.
“The Company Men,” is less about the downsizing of a company and more about the uplifting of a spirit, in particular, Bobby Walker’s.
After endlessly searching for jobs, Walker finally takes a job as a carpenter with his brother-in-law, played by Kevin Costner. In almost every scene Costner is in, he steals it. With a blatantly blue-collared attitude, Costner wastes no time putting Walker to work.
“The Company Men” is a fitting introduction as John Well’s directorial debut. It would have been easy to make a film about the economy and make it dreary to watch but Wells tackled the challenge of making a film that is overall positive in terms of today’s job market. “The Company Men” is entertaining from beginning to end and sometimes the realism of the situations can only make you think it could happen to anyone, even you.
“The Company Men,” opens in theaters nationwide Jan. 21.
