IN THE COMPANY OF MEN (Sony Classics) Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Matt Malloy, Stacy Edwards. Screenplay: Neil LaBute. Producers: Mark Archer and Stephen Pevner. Director: Neil LaBute. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 96 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
The two main characters in Neil LaBute's IN THE COMPANY OF MEN -- the best American film to appear this year, and the best film _likely_ to appear -- do some of the most vicious things screen characters have ever done without weapons. Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy), a pair of mid-level corporate drones on a six-week project assingment in their company's Midwestern branch office, decide to find a vulnerable woman they can mutually seduce and abandon as their revenge against all women. Howard berates deaf secretary Christine (Stacy Edwards) for having the audacity to be selective about her romantic partners; Chad forces a male office intern to drop his pants and prove that he has the gonads for the business world, physically as well as metaphorically. You may walk into IN THE COMPANY OF MEN expecting it to be about the cruelty of men towards women. You'll walk out realizing it is about cruelty in every possible permutation.
It is a testimony to LaBute's talent as a storyteller that he allows us to see the damaged humanity beneath the despicable things his characters do. Matt Malloy's Howard, who seems to be the kinder of the two, simply has a more benign pathology. A desperately insecure man recently dumped by his fiancee, Howard longs for the ability to exert power over others yet has no idea how to use it. Though he has no desire to hurt Christine, his interest in her is purely selfish. He merely wants someone so pathetic and so low-status that she would never leave him.
Then there is Chad, a startling creation rendered with creepy nonchalance and savage humor by Aaron Eckhart. It would be easy to read Chad as a simple sociopath; it would also be the least interesting reading. Bubbling beneath his brutality is a profound fear and paranoia, making Chad so convinced that everyone is ready to screw him over that it only makes sense for him to screw everyone else over first. His every action is a pre-emptive first strike of rage -- at women, at his co-workers, at the world -- designed to keep everyone off-balance through the bald-faced exertion of power.
LaBute employs notably static composition throughout IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, the kind which might be written off as the work of a rookie film-maker who hasn't discovered his visual style. I can't imagine a more fitting style for this story. For all their barely-diluted bile, Chad and Howard are essentially creations of their world, a corporate culture of claustrophobic cubicles, water cooler back-stabbing and mundane line-ups at the copy machine. LaBute's shots cage his performers, observing their panicked movements from a distance as though they were zoo animals. There is no room for morality IN THE COMPANY OF MEN; the concept is a luxury for those who still feel human.
IN THE COMPANY OF MEN is caustic enough that it's not always a pleasant experience, but it's hardly like taking medicine, either. LaBute's brilliant script and Eckhart's star-making performance as Chad create some of the year's most hilarious moments, even if the laughter is born of disbelief as frequently as delight. In fact, Chad is so charming that there is bound to be consternation over his portrayal, concern that he could be viewed as a cutthroat role model. How sad if there were even a glimmer of truth to such perceptions. Neil LaBute has unveiled the horror of an environment of gross selfishness turned toxic -- it's Objectivism rendered as psychosis. Watching IN THE COMPANY OF MEN is like watching a car wreck between ethics and primal urges, one from which it's almost impossible to look away.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 company men: 10.
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