The Company You Keep Review
RYAN: This is the new film directed by and starring Robert Redford with a great cast including Shia LaBoeuf, who I like as an actor, but am confused by as a person.
CHUCK: [laughs’ He does tend to confuse people and his film choices are interesting – from the Transformer movies to things like this, kind of an art-house drama.
RYAN: This movie is very slow moving and isn’t that interesting. It’s set up to be a mystery but never reaches even the valleys of a movie like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I was only mildly interested while watching this film.
CHUCK: It’s an attempted the thriller without any real thrills. It reminded me of the movie Sneakers from the early 90s, with Robert Redford, where he pretty much plays the same character. It’s a bit like The Fugitive but without any excitement or suspense.
RYAN: Yeah the pacing was slow and since it’s not intense, it’s boring. While I did enjoy trying to piece together what was happening, and there are characters I like, including lawyers and journalists, the FBI… but usually they all add up to a much more riveting story.
CHUCK: I agree. It has the makes of every paint by number thriller/drama out there without any of the actual suspense.
RYAN: Susan Sarandon is in it and she’s always good but doesn’t have a big part.
CHUCK: It’s always good to see her in a movie. And the same with a lot of the cast – Julie Christie, Nick Nolte, Richard Jenkins, Chris Cooper, Stanley Tucci, Brendan Gleeson.
RYAN: And hello – Anna Kendrick. I love her.
CHUCK: Love her. And even seeing Robert Redford on the big screen is great.
RYAN: And he looks great – he had some of those variously-sized bumps removed from his face.
CHUCK: We mentioned the star power in the cast and for a movie that’s not that stellar, you have to imagine they all just wanted to sign on because Robert was directing and they’re receiving a paycheck.
RYAN: The vibe of this movie was a lot like Arbitrage from last year but even that was a more exciting movie. That one also had Susan Sarandon in it. I like how this movie went from New York to Milwaukee to Chicago, thus covering all of the cities I have lived in.
CHUCK: But I didn’t realize before this movie that there were mountains in Chicago.
RYAN: [laughs’ Yeah that was another problem.
CHUCK: The score was either absent or atmospheric and it was effective but that’s about it.
RYAN: I was uber-frustrated by the last shot of the film. It was, like, three minutes long and there was no story in there. It was just a long shot that went on and on before fading to the credits. It could have just been a ten second shot instead. What the heck!
CHUCK: It didn’t bring anything to conclusion or anything.
RYAN: Because of the cast I’ll call it a rental but seriously, watch with low expectations.
