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By
WAYNE KLEIN
Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid)
is an ad executive for Sports America When
Globecom buys the magazine he works for his world
is turned upside down; he gets demoted, loses his
office and gets a new boss half his age named
Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) who is determined to
turn the magazine's falling stock around. Things
take a turn for the worse when Carter starts
dating Foreman's daughter (Scarlett Johansson).
They immediately butt heads over Carter's lack of
experience and their differing views of how to run
things.
A well made thought provoking comedy from the
director of "About a Boy," "In Good Company" has
more than a touch of the real world in it. Quaid
gives a marvelous performance as Foreman and is
equally matched by Topher Grace as the
inexperienced but gung ho Carter.
An exceptionally nice transfer from Universal, "In
Good Company" lives up to its name when compared
to other recently released films. The image
quality is crisp, sharp with nice color
reproduction. Digital artifacts are kept to a
minimum. The use of 5.1 is very nice as well and
the dialogue, music and sound effects are all
clear and vivid.
The multi-part featurette is entitled "SYNERGY"
with one letter representing one part of the
featurette for example, the "S" is for "Stars,"
"Y" is for "Youth," etc. You get the picture. As
featurettes go it's not all that creative but does
allow for the stars and director to discuss what
attracted them to the project in the first place
and their take on the story. The deleted scenes
with director Paul Weitz providing commentary
focuses on why each scene was cut include a number
of marvelous sequences that worked but had to be
trimmed for time reasons. With an initial running
time of 2 hours and forty minutes, Weitz knew he
had to lose roughly an hour of the film to make it
work in theaters. Although he agonized over a
number of scenes, Weitz had to be pretty ruthless
to make the film manageable and to please
Universal's executives. There are also text
biographies on the cast and filmmakers.
Paul Weitz's comments play well against the witty
Topher Grace. Weitz focuses much more on the
difficulties in bringing his vision to the screen.
Weitz's inexperience as a film director meant that
he learned a considerable amount about pacing and
transitions throughout the making of the film and
he's more than willing to point out the happy
accidents that make the film work. It's also nice
that they feel comfortable in busting each other's
chops. While it's not a quip a minute, it's a nice
addition providing additional background on the
making of the movie.
"In Good Company" manages to be touching, funny,
romantic and heartbreaking all without pandering
to the lowest common denominator. Well directed
with a intelligent, thoughtful but funny
screenplay, "In Good Company" continues to promise
much from the former screenwriter of "American
Pie" and director of "About a Boy." Weitz manages
to make the film appeal to both older and younger
views with this examination of age, the generation
gap and the changes both face in life and their
careers. |
