IN GOOD COMPANY (2004) Review
Direction and screenplay: Paul Weitz
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, Scarlett Johansson, Marg Helgenberger, David Paymer, Philip Baker Hall, Clark Gregg, Malcolm McDowell, Selma Blair, Ty Burrell
Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, In Good Company
Better known for his gross-out comedy American Pie and for co-directing with brother Chris Weitz the syrupy morality tale About a Boy (which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay), Paul Weitz is hardly the type of talent one would expect behind a movie about a ruthless corporate takeover. But rest assured, In Good Company, despite its business-dog-eats-business-dog setting, is anything but heavy drama.
In the film, Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) is the soon-to-be ex-head of ad sales for the New York-based magazine Sports America. For right after Dan tries to arrange a deal with an important Los Angeles client (Philip Baker Hall), he finds out that Sports America has been taken over by Globecom, a gigantic multinational ruled by the All-Powerful Corporate Emperor Teddy K (Malcolm McDowell).
Dan is demoted, and his spacious office is given to the new second-in-command at Sports America, the prodigious overachiever Carter Duryea (Topher Grace). Adding insult to injury, Carter is a mere 26 years old — or about half Dan's age. He and Dan immediately clash, partly because of Dan's bruised ego, partly because Dan does business the "old-fashioned way": he believes his company has a good product to offer and he tries to build personal relationships with his clients. Carter, for his part, is obsessed with synergy, in other words, he wants to turn Sports America into an ad venue for the conglomerate's other products, which range from crunchy snacks to dinosaur-shaped cell phones.
And if all of that weren't enough, Foreman, the father of two teenage girls, discovers that his wife, Ann (Marg Helgenberger), is expecting another child. Things surely couldn't get any worse — but they do. Carter and Dan's 18-year-old daughter, the independent-minded college student Alex (Scarlett Johansson, above, with Grace) begin an affair without Dan's knowledge.
And if that weren't enough, both Dan and Alex will have to deal with more unexpected upheavals in the corporate world.
Sounds gritty? Well, it's anything but. Weitz, who also wrote the screenplay, has come up with another lightweight morality tale. However, unlike the thoroughly artificial About a Boy, in which Hugh Grant becomes enlightened once he awakens his long-dormant father instincts and discovers the joys of monogamy, In Good Company turns out to be a surprisingly agreeable dramatic-comedy peppered with moments of genuine humor and pathos.
Greatly helping matters are Dennis Quaid and, particularly, Topher Grace as, respectively, the corporate dinosaur and the corporate barracuda. Those two actors play off of each other remarkably well, and they both bring a level of warmth and truth to their roles that goes way beyond what is required either by the script or by Weitz's at times clunky direction.
Indeed, Quaid and Grace are so good — and so is Malcolm McDowell in a cameo as a Rupert Murdoch-ish corporate ogre — that even the absurdly contrived sunny finale fails to dispel the many honest moments In Good Company has to offer.