The Company Men is the first film to be directed by veteran television producer and writer John Wells.  Previously, Wells worked on ER, The West Wing, Southland, Third Watch, and a whole host of other shows that I’d rather die than ever have to actually sit through.  With The Company Men, Wells attempts to tell the story of the current economic recession and what its like to go from being a high-paid executive to just another unemployed statistic.  The end result is a deeply uneven film that comes so very close to succeeding but ultimately fails.

The film opens in 2008 and indeed, most of the film takes place in ’08.  It always amuses me how any film that comes out now that deals with either the economy or the wars in the Middle East (the Hurt Locker being an obvious example), the filmmakers always go out of their way to let us know that their movie is taking place during the Bush administration and not the Obama Administration.  Some people would call that “ass kissing” but I just find it to be amusing. 

Anyway, getting back on track here, the films follows three corporate executives who all work for a fictional company called GTX.  There’s a rich, white guy played by Ben Affleck.  And then there’s a richer, white guy played by Chris Cooper.  And then finally, I guess to add some variety to the mix, there’s a white guy who is really, really rich and he’s played by Tommy Lee Jones.  Anyway, Affleck, Cooper, and Jones are all cheerfully doing their thing until one day, the recession hits and boom!  Suddenly, Affleck is told that he has become “redundant.”  He’s given a severance package and sent off on his merry way.  Meanwhile, Cooper worries that he’s about to face the same fate while Jones — who is one of the company’s vice presidents — tries to keep GTX’s satanic CEO from putting anyone else out of work. 

It’s Affleck and his story that commands most of the film’s running time and, to his credit, Affleck actually gives a surprisingly good performance here as he starts out as smug and self-centered before eventually becoming desperate and insecure until finally, by the end of the film, he’s reached a state of acceptance.  A lot of this has to do with the fact that he finally humbles himself into accepting a job with his blue-collar brother-in-law, a homebuilder played by Kevin Costner.

A word about Kevin Costner in this film: I could have done without him.  First off, I understand his character is supposed to be a blue-collar, plain-spoken, salt-of-the-Earth type but honestly, he just comes across like a overlymacho asshole who probably voted for Lyndon LaRouche at some point in the past.  I guess he’s supposed to be John Wells’ version of the noble savage or something.

But with that one glaring exception, The Company Men is a remarkably well-acted film.  Even though Jones and Cooper are saddled playing predictable characters, they both bring a real unexpected poignancy to their portrayals.  Cooper, especially, is strong and always sympathetic even though you know everything that’s going to happen to him from the minute he first shows up on-screen.  Rosemarie DeWitt has the rather thankless role of being Affleck’s wife but she brings a lot of strength to a thinly written character and she and Affleck have a real chemistry.  When they’re on-screen together, you believe in their marriage which is more than you can say for most screen couples.

The cast of The Company Men is such a strong ensemble that you really find yourself hoping (and sometimes even believing) that the overall film will succeed as well.  But, alas, the film fails and it manages to fail for all the obvious reasons.  John Wells is best known for his work in television and The Company Men never really shakes that made-for-TV feeling.  For every scene that offers up an unexpected insight or a subtle piece of characterization, there’s a hundred more that feel glib, smug, and ultimately forced.  For every honest note, there’s a false one waiting right around the corner to pounce on it and beat it into submission.  This is the type of movie where Tommy Lee Jones walks around a deserted shipyard and delivers a monologue about the way things use to be to a character who has absolutely no logical reason for being there beyond the fact that Wells needed to find an excuse for Jones to deliver the whole long speech to begin with.  Don’t get me wrong — Jones delivers the words beautifully but so what?  The scene still feels safe, predictable, and ultimately false.   

And what’s the deal with Maria Bello in this film?  She plays Sally Wilcox who is apparently in charge of “downsizing” at GTX.  She’s also having an adulterous affair with Tommy Lee Jones despite the fact that all Jones ever does is criticize her for even existing.  Never mind the fact, of course, that Jones is a part of the entire corporate culture that’s responsible for the Sally Wilcoxes of the world to begin with.  It’s hard not to feel that her character is there to largely let Jones off the hook.  It’s not Jones’s fault that everyone who works under him ends up unemployed and, in one really obvious plot development, dead.  No, it’s that evil Sally Wilcox with her blonde hair and black lingerie.  And what you can’t blame on Sally, put the blame on Jones’s wife and toss Cooper’s wife in there as well since they’re both portrayed as being heartless wenches (as opposed to DeWitt who is a good wife because she supports Affleck no matter what).  The Company Men is full of sympathy for depressed, self-pitying white guys but it has next to none for the women who have to live with them. 

Wells is obviously trying to say something about the Recession but what?  Obviously, he lays a lot of the blame at the doorstep of greedy CEOs like the one played, in this film, by Craig T. Nelson.  Unfortunately, you get the feeling that Wells seems to think that he’s the only person in the world who has managed to figure out that excessive corporate greed can be a bad thing.  He may think that he’s educating but really all he’s doing is preaching and the only ones listening are the choir.