Bad Company

To be honest; this is one of those movies that you can miss. It's entertaining, not bad acting. Highly on the marketing though. "A tough movie needs to have violence, sex and lots of situations where the bad guy is a good guy?" Is that true? This movie gives you an interesting cast, a nice theme but leaves you with a non-content feeling. It's ok, but there is something about it that makes it quite unnecessary ...

I rented this because it was written by Ross Thomas, and I'm a huge fan of his novels. I wanted to see how his ideas were put on the screen. The story line and plot twists are very Thomas, but the characters seemed a little one-dimensional. He is great at building characters in his novels, but there just isn't enough time to do that in a movie. I needed to see vulnerability in each character, when all that was given was cold calculation (which even the hardest CIA agent is NOT). The sex scenes seemed forced, and I bet that they weren't in the original script. Thomas doesn't need to use sex to relate characters to each other, but it's a quick 'gimmie' for the film. I recommend this movie to any Ross Thomas fan, especially given that it was probably the last thing he wrote before he died. Otherwise, watch it if you're into mystery, but know that it's not very thrilling, and can move slowly at times.

It's not the company you keep but the one you work for at issue here in this taut film about an ex-CIA agent who goes to work for a company that specializes in helping their corporate clients get the upper hand in any and all situations by any means necessary, but especially blackmail, as the central plot revolves around soborning a judge who has severely compromised his integrity by mounting up impressive gambling debts and extra-marital infidelity. Ellen Barkin plays the devious (bad) company recruiter who signs on ex agent Laurence Fishbourne whose 140 IQ proves no match for her physical talents. By bribing the compromised judge (David Ogden Stiers) they will rescue their client Walter Curl (Spalding Grey) from a lawsuit that claims that his company dumped cancer causing pollutants. Though the judge is a gambling philanderer, he's in nobody's pocket, and thus, after taking the bribe, votes his conscience on the case in question, and then opts out after sending his girlfriend (Gia Carides) to the Bahamas with the money. Meanwhile Barkin maneuvers Fishbourne through sex into killing company head Frank Langella, showing that IQ comes in a distant second to sex appeal. Nobody (except maybe Carides and Stiers, and to a certain extent Fishbourne) is going to win much sympathy from the audience, but the story stays on task all the way through, and the observations it casts on corportate behavior are not so far out.

This yawner of a thriller stars Frank Langella and Ellen Barkin as the operators of a company that specializes in letting former secret agents commit corporate crimes. Laurence "Larry" Fishburne portrays Nelson Crowe, the former CIA agent who's the company's most recent recruit. A series of bizarre and not all that exciting situations follow as Langella and Barkin band together to find out just what their latest recruit's story really is. It all adds up to one of the slowest thrillers ever.

Decent thriller has a basic story of double-dealing partners with different agendas and bribery of a judge with a gambling problem. Ellen Barkin, Laurence Fishburne and Frank Langella are the principals involved in an organization that specializes in blackmail and bribery schemes, with double crosses thrown in for good measure. A key element in the picture is the offer of a bribe to a judge for his vote in a controversial court case, with the predictable drama and mystery following thereafter. The film also has wild sex scenes that are intended to add spice to a complicated mystery involving shadowy CIA and espionage figures. Gia Carides has a key supporting role as the judge's mistress who later acts out her part of a woman bent on payback. Remainder of the cast is okay and the tech credits are fine.

Nelson Crowe (Laurence Fishburne) is a CIA operative who was downsized after a dispute over a missing bribe of $50k in gold. Vic Grimes (Frank Langella) hires him for his company "The Toolshed" which blackmails and bribes for their corporate clients. Grimes and Margaret Wells (Ellen Barkin) are working to bribe State Supreme Court Judge Beach for their client Walter Curl. Wells comes to Crowe with a scheme to take over The Toolshed from Crowe. It's a lot of noir moody style. There is not much attention paid to provide any rooting interesting for the characters. It's a lot of cold distant characters and loads of dark hard-boiled cool style. It's so cool that there is no heat in it even with the sizzling Barkin. There is not enough excitement or tension. These are great actors and they almost make this work. The schemes, blackmail, brides and double-cross do get to be questionable. The problem is that I stop caring about halfway through.

I think it's a cool movie, really brings out the characteristic of different characters. Nelson Crowe is the control freak and the killer, great acting by Laurence Fishburne. These people are simply doing whatever they have to do, but not want to. They're all in massive pressure and you can feel it--thanks for the brilliant acting. The pressure is pushing everyone crazy and changing them. I think the best part of the movie is where Nelson pushes Margaret onto the table when she tries to fight back, and say "you're the angel I dreamed of". What a great social engineer! While in the last part, she simply had enough of his bullshit and couldn't take it no more. (as I said before, Nelson is the control freak) When Margarent killed the old guy, there was a moment where she was emotionally stunned, but she didn't want to show it before Nelson and they still had business to do. While the plot seems strange, and could be changed abit, it's still a great see would recommend anyone to see it. There are simply too much things in this film to mention. Be warned though the ending is quite disturbing some people might not like it.

Don't let its outwards fool you. It's not a pure thriller. It is one biting movie about love and trust in modern times, yet through the shape of a thriller. Scriptwriter (Ross Thomas) made a world of betrayal, where everybody scheming everybody dirtily and endlessly. And the survivor could be the one who loves honestly for love, the one who's immaculate and ready to face! Perhaps, the end would be disappointing; it even might turn the whole thing into pointless movie. However, it got to end the 2 malicious worldly-wise leads by the hand of inexperienced idiot who closes her eyes while shooting guns, all for making the deep bitter paradox, and for the sake of assuring how a couple like this would, one way or another, end each other, and how the true lover could win at last (even forcedly!), especially with this easy naive solution of random festival of killing, where the bad guys go to hell, and the kind one hits the jackpot, and wins the revenge. Now how poetic, and fabricated, this justice was! Not to mention that it didn't care about the rest of the characters' fates, which ultimately stamped it with the "deficient" mark, and it is. Despite that, it managed somehow to embody the concept of (Bad Company) whereas it's not a "bad intelligence", no, it's more like "evil association" that must eat and eat till it eats itself in the end. The movie's title got its double meaning already, but the movie itself wasn't perfectly satisfying in the both sides, expressly the superficial one, so that's where all the bad feeling about the movie may come from. Director (Damian Harris) filled it with elegant style. Everything was beautiful and anesthetically colorful. The image was so soft, the cinematography and the editing were always smooth, the clothes seemed sharp, even the smallest details were fine. That was something to attract, bewitch, and make the irony with all the putrefaction within; where nothing is filthy but the whole moralities. I loved the private agency's set; it looked like luxurious prison, scary company, or fake monastery. Though, I felt some coldness when it came to dealing with what was inside the characters, which left a clear negative effect on the acting. (Ellen Barkin) was awful, aside from a poorly written role, her face was so provocatively dead, and she's pathetically pretty to be that irresistible Femme Fatale! The nudity, the sex, and the profanity are, as always, disgusting to say the least. If any artist is free to choose these elements, seeing that their art will be wrong without them, then I'm also free to hate these elements, seeing no art in them in the first place! Yes, it's partly amusing, acridly satirical, with a nasty character, capturing the outrageous sense of the 1980s' and the 1990s' erotic thrillers. But it's not a brilliant thriller, inasmuch as a movie about utterly unfaithful world, where all would kill or be killed simply for money and power. So when I listen to its clever sad music score, I feel the real motive of the movie, and I feel sad because the movie, as a whole, remains semi-contrived and imperfect though.

I won't bore you with the plot. Except to say it's not any more believable than the acting. Most of the cast seemed to be capable of acting but the juvenile script and direction make it a waste of time. This movie sucks on so many different levels it never had a chance. I was almost embarrassed to watch it. The way you would be embarrassed to see a friend make a fool of himself when he was drunk. Like seeing someone at a very low point in his or her life. After watching it I had to look up what Ebert said about it and marvel at the fact he liked it. Most movies these days are awful. I guess if you're movie reviewer you can't write bad reviews on everything. At the end I thought it might have a twist to save it somewhat. But it turned out the end was just as bad as the rest of it

The movie was decently laid out and plotted- Larry Fishburne was just too cool in the whole movie. It wasn't the best movie, but for some underhanded dirty dealing showing the training of the CIA in the best light of conspiracy theorists, it was pretty effective. Note that a *whole* lot of people reviewing the movie apparently were not paying attention during the climax... the rest contains spoilers that explain it... spoiler. spoiler. spoiler. spoiler. In the finale, the silly woman who had gone to get revenge shoots *with her eyes closed* and empties the gun she had taken, hitting *nothing*. Thus the outgunning that people talk about, or ellen barkin getting taken out with rounds to the belly are hogwash. In the tradition of Prizzi's Honor, Barkin and Fishburne stalk through this attempting to kill each other. Barkin takes Fishburne in the head, and he shoots her in the heart at the exact same time. Only when the shooting stops and the woman opens her eyes does she see them lying dead... her gun having hit *noone*.