A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

In Good Company would’ve been your typical comedy if they made lazy choices. Thankfully they didn’t and kept it honest and logical. As a result, In Good Company is an entertaining movie worth your attention. If you decide to watch it in the theaters, you won’t feel cheated out of your time and money.

Dennis Quaid is 51 year-old Dan Foreman, Head of Sales of the sports magazine, Sports America. The magazine has just been bought out by a huge multi-national corporation and Dan faces an uncertain future in his Sports America career. To top it off, Dan’s daughter, Alex (Scarlett Johansson) is entering college and his wife (one of my favorite CSIs - Marg Helgenberger) is on her way to having their third baby. Enter Carter Duryea (That 70s Show’s Topher Grace), a 26-year old hotshot exec who takes over Dan’s job in Sports America and wastes no time to implement his plan to meet the new owner’s expectations.

The conflict between Dan and Carter is made more interesting because the two characters are well-fleshed out. Dan has experience on his side, attending to his clients and getting to know them in a very personal level while still claiming to be a ‘bad salesman’. The only downside to him is his age. He can’t very well leave the company and start fresh somewhere else. Carter on the other hand knows he is a good salesman. He has made a name for himself despite his age and knows his way around the corporate setting. Despite his inexperience compared to Dan, Carter holds out on his own, refusing to be bullied just because former is older.

Once the two have met, Dan and Carter proceed to prove that their weaknesses are negligible. This is after all a comedy. It’s nice to see Quiad in another comedy after being a long string of drama and action flicks. He plays Dan like a jock who has mellowed out with age with the help of his wife and daughter. Too much estrogen in the house I guess. Grace still can’t shake all his 70’s Show character’s mannerisms but he’s still sympathetic enough to like him despite being the interloper in Dan’s life. He plays Carter like yuppie who still has a bit of soul left despite the corporated skirmished.

As for the women in this move - Johanssen is cute. At least she plays her age in this one and there’s a nice chemistry going with Grace whenever they’re together on screen. It’s a bit disappointing to see Helgenberger relagated as the woman of the house because it called for Dan to have a solid family background. She’s reduced to a prop. All the more frustrating as Helgenberger was allowed to shine in a scene where she prepares dinner and proceeds to berate Dan in a fashion only a pregnant woman can get away with. We saw where Johanssen’s Alex got her willfulness.

Anyone who have worked in an office environment would be able to relate to the politics, pettiness, misplaced competitiveness, and intrigues in the workplace. You’ll know too the exhiliration from accomplishments and the seeming infinite possibilities that one can do in the same structure. If you have, at the very least, worked a day in your life, you’ll know the satisfaction it brings knowing you’ve done all you can to contribute to the bottom line. In Good Company wonderfully captures the corporate life. It’s not always sexy but the people you work with makes it worth the while.

The movie also takes a shot at the ‘new way of doing business’ mantra and buzzword goobledeegook which has permeated into corporations with the explosion of the Internet. Yes businesses have become global but there are elements which will remain inherently the same - you can’t sell a product by just thinking about it. There has to be old-fashioned leg work - represented by Dan - tempered with Carter’s eye for the big picture.

It’s an entertaining movie and you can’t go wrong with seeing it in the theater although I suspect it’ll also play well on cable in the coming months. It doesn’t have a Hollywood ending which suprised and delighted me to no end. It would’ve been corny otherwise. You get to care about these characters because of the solid performances all around.