The Company Men has some rock-solid performances from Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones as shipping company executives who are sacked during the recession. The problem is we have seen this stuff before in Up in the Air and other redundancy-horror films, and it’s hard to squeeze out sympathy for rich white executives forced to sell their spare Porsches or downsize their McMansions. Indeed, many scenes are like a trip inside a particularly tasteless edition of Interiors magazine.
Affleck is keen to attach himself to these worthy projects in Boston, the last being the much-smarter thriller, The Town. But this battle of the ancient rust-belt shipyards versus the modern world of cut-throat finance feels tired. Directed by John Wells, of The West Wing, the movie shows the sharp confrontations of office politics contrasted with the collapsing home lives of men who cannot believe they are obsolete.
John Wells 15, 105 mins