I saw In Good Company right after Hotel Rwanda, on the theory that I needed a sort of sorbet to cleanse the sadness, but that turned out not to be such a good idea. Against Hotel Rwanda’s sober realism, In Good Company just seems fluffy and inconsequential. It’s an inoffensive enough movie, aside from its obvious and obnoxious product placement – though I suppose it’s appropriate in a movie that was originally called Synergy.
Dennis Quaid goes a little overboard on the “old-timer coping with the upstart” role; his ad-sales executive is demoted in favor of whippersnapper Topher Grace when Quaid’s sports magazine is acquired in a corporate merger. Grace is charming, avoiding being either the brash asshole or the sensitive guy (though he’s generally pathetically eager to be liked, he doesn’t hesitate to whip out the “I can fire you” card when he needs to). The corporate synergy stuff seems weirdly dated, like Working Girl-era social satire that's no longer fresh or cutting.
I had high hopes for this movie, having been
so pleasantly
surprised by writer-director Paul Weitz’s About
a Boy, but it largely eschews that movie’s tartness and
unpredictability. A more acid, cynical
take would have served
this story better; as it is, even without the contrast of Hotel
Rwanda, it’s pretty lightweight stuff.
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