The other day, I mentioned how I liked being in a movie theatre with only a few other people. I'm not sure how I felt last night being the only one in the theatre to see "The Company You Keep".
I don't watch too much TV these days, and when I do, it's to catch up on whatever I've decided to record on my DVR. I've seen a few commercials for this movie here and there, and I've seen people comment on other sites about a lack of commercials for this film, so I know the general population probably won't know this film exists. Then again, it's only playing in about 700 theatres in it's widest release, and I doubt the film will have an even wider release.
Now, onto the review...
I knew I wanted to see this movie in theatres, but perhaps I should have waited until a matinee showing to see this.
This was a good film, and I did like it. I didn't love it, though. This film is labelled as a "crime thriller". Yes, there was crime. Yes, there was thrill. Was there a lot of each? No. It was more of a "suspenseful drama". Funny enough, Wikipedia lists this film as a "political action thriller". I agree that this film had a bit of political talk in this, so we'll go ahead and call this a "political, suspenseful drama".
The film starts out with news clips during the Vietnam War. One of the last clips describes a bank robbery in Michigan, in which a bank robber is killed. Throughout the film, we meet the three people (Susan Saradon, Robert Redford, and Julie Christie) involved with the robbery. We also meet Ben (Shia LaBeouf), a local journalist in Albany who begins working on the case. Even though the lead investigator at the FBI, Cornelius (Terrence Howard), warns Ben to stay out of the way, he continues to dig deep into the lives of the three fugitives.
One thing that really bothered me was the inclusion of random shots and unnecessary dialogue. With a movie like this, you can't slow down once you start. A lot of the unnecessary dialogue is explained at the end, but even then, it feels both rushed and random. This film could've easily been a tolerable two-plus hour movie, with lots of tense action. In the end, this was like a barely suspenseful car chase.
The acting in this film was very good. All of the older actors did an A+ plus job, and I really enjoyed Shia's acting in this film. It was really nice seeing Shia outside of all the action-packed movies he's been doing for the past few years now.
Would I recommend this film to others? Yes and no. There are other political/crime thrillers that I would name first.
I'll definitely go back and re-watch this movie, but when it comes out on bluray. I was very tired and ready to go home by the end of the movie last night, so that probably impaired by judgment of the movie just a bit. Since I bought the book, I do want to read that before going back and watching the movie, so I can definitely perhaps give this a better, or worse, review in the future.
Watch the trailer here:
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