THE COMPANY MEN

FILM REACTION REPORT

SUBMITTED TO:
PROF. ADELO C. BRABANTE

SUBMITTED BY:
GINALYN ROBLES
4AFM
MOVIE TITLE:
 The Company Men

PRINCIPAL CAST & CHARACTERS PORTRAYED:

 BEN AFFLECK (as Bobby Walker). GTX's top salesman, he pulls in $125,000 to
$160,000 a year — the number keeps changing depending on whom he's talking to
— and spends every bit of it on his nice wife Maggie (Rosemarie DeWitt) and their
two kids, plus the showplace home, the Porsche, the golf-club membership, the
Patriots season tickets and all the other benefits of upward mobility that Bobby
seems to think are inscribed in the Constitution. But as he walks into the office after
a weekend of golf and relaxation he discover that he’s been fired.

 CHRIS COOPER (as Phil Woodward). A veteran exec at GTX who finds himself on the
bubble and constantly afraid of losing his job as he is being challenged by a more
youthful group of people.

 TOMMY LEE JONES (as Gene McClary). Co- founder, second-in-command at the
Massachusetts multinational firm GTX, he lives in a Tara-like mansion — two
Christmas trees in the foyer — with a wife who airily asks if she can use one of the
corporate jets for a shopping trip to Palm Springs. He spends the occasional lunch
hour in a hotel bed with his blond mistress Sally Wilcox (Maria Bello), the
company's HR chief. He’s also a self-appointed spokesperson for the lower-level
personnel.

 KEVIN COSTNER (as Jack Dolan). Walker’s brother-in-law. Playing the blue-collar
construction worker, He is the source of most of the film’s levity.

 CRAIG T. NELSON (as James Salinger). GTX’s unflinching and unemotional head
executive.

FILM DIRECTOR:
 John Wells

STORY AND SCREENPLAY WRITER:

 John Wells

DATE OF FILM RELEASE:

 January 22, 2010(Sundance Film Festival) (limited);
 January 21, 2011 (wide)

SETTING OF THE FILM:

 The movie takes place at Boston, Massachusetts as banks teeter on the brink and the
stock market plunges.

SUMMARY OF THE MOVIE PLOT:

 GTX, a Boston conglomerate that grew out of a shipbuilding company whose
fortunes is tumbling now finds that it has to consolidate and lay off hundreds of
employees to please its shareholders. Joining the causalities of this downsizing are
 Gene, Bobby and Phil who have worked their whole careers at a company to which
they've devoted at least as much time and energy as they have to their families. The
first one to get the bad news is Bobby Walker, a sales executive who has been living
the plush suburban dream. After months of false promises, Bobby goes from a top
managerial position to selling his Porsche, moving his family into his parents' house
and working for his blue-collar brother-in-law (Jack Dolan) in the construction
business. Bobby’s colleague, Phil, is the veteran exec who gets the ax and discovers
that, pushing 60, he might as well be applying for jobs from a retirement home. And
Gene, whose status affords him the right to speak the truth and argue about
downsizing soon finds out that he’s own head is on the chopping block. It was Gene,
with the verve and determination to start over showing visibly in his eyes and jaw,
who saves the day by starting a company, McLarry Maritime and Associates with the
rest of the laid off employees of GTX and Bobby walker who realizes that true
prosperity doesn't come in the form of a paycheck, but through the satisfaction of
knowing that his family will always be there to support him.

 CLIMAX/MAIN CONFLICT IN THE MOVIE:

 When corporate downsizing leaves Bobby Walker and co-workers Phil Woodward
and Gene McClary jobless, the three men are forced to re-define their lives as men,
husbands, and fathers- With McClary’s contesting lay-offs while yearning for the
woman doing the firing; Woodward wrestles with how to find a way to say "no" to
the wife and daughter he has provided everything for; and Walker being is lost in
the demoralizing world of a job placement center, dead-end job interviews, being
one MBA amongst many.

 CONFLICT RESOLUTION:
 As the winter snows thaw and spring emerges, so do The Company Men (Bobby,
Gene, and Phil). Some stronger. Some defeated. With McClary’s verve and
determination to start over, he started a business named, McLarry Maritime and
Associates with Bobby and the rest of the laid off employees of GTX.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE FILM

A. MAJOR STRENGTHS OF THE FILM

 Has a strong performances, intense dialogue, a realistic storyline and a perfectly
concerning topic in light of the deep economic woes faced by many of the countries.
 In quite legitimate detail, The Company Men sets out the degrading facts of
joblessness, even for those who have held relatively privileged positions.
 It explores the numerous ways good people find the strength to pick up the pieces
and recalibrate priorities when they get the wind knocked out of their sails, when
they lose the things—cars, appliances, tools, charge accounts, technological gadgets,
gym memberships, the stuff—that define their lives.
 It's a marvelous picture, a perfect mirror to today's corporate snake pit, where
people are just figures on a balance sheet, and to the people we observe daily,
severed from their jobs for no reason and drifting into a bleak future—but with a
hopeful, promising and responsible resolution.
 The Company Men’s work about the impact of the crisis on a well-heeled and
complacent layer is entirely appropriate, and potentially could dispel “the dominant
 conventional illusions” and shake “the optimism of the bourgeois world,” as a great
Marxist once phrased it, if such confidence can still be said to exist.

B. MAJOR WEAKNESSES OF THE FILM

 Yes, the film's a little moralistic as it lays out the issues. But when it comes to the
emotional state of those being laid off, of their families and even of those doing the
laying off, it gets things right enough to make audiences squirm.
 The Company Men, writer/director John Wells tries to capitalize on this idea,
attempting to craft a character piece that shows how the recession effects the
various socio-economic classes, but fails to make something thought-provoking or
distinctive.
 There is a constant sense of tragedy surrounding the laid off employees brought on
by line ranging from the awkward job interviews to the humbling moment when
they realize that they might have to downsize and maybe take a paycut.
 There were boring clichés that pepper the movie.

C. AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT FOR THE FILM

 Though replete with an incredible cast that most certainly does its best with the
material, particularly Ben Affleck, there simply isn’t enough creativity employed by
Wells in his screenplay to keep movie-goers engaged from start to finish. Employing
a series of tropes, stereotypical characters, and overt messages condemning lavish
lifestyles and corporate greed in a time of lay-offs, the film lacks any real depth and
fails to evoke any emotional response in spite of what should be heartbreaking
content.
 It would have been nice if The Company Men addressed some issues like were good
workers jobs necessary? or is it possible that although they were possibly the victims of
corporate greed more interested in profits, they may also have really been victims of their
times with a rampant global expansion and technological leaps that make entire industries
and professions moot?

D. OVER-ALL CRITIQUE OF THE FILM ARTISTIC & TECHNICAL ASPECTS

 The talented cast—Affleck, Jones, Cooper, DeWitt, Nelson, Costner and Bello, along
with Patricia Kalember, John Doman and others—performs uniformly well.
 Roger Deakins, the well-known British cinematographer, has filmed everything
clearly and accurately.

BUSINESS FILM REACTION

A. MAIN PLOT AND BUSINESS THEME DEVELOPMENT

 GTX, a Boston-based company eliminates three thousand employees as banks teeter

on the brink and the stock market plunges. One of those is Bobby Walker, a sales
executive with 12 years’ service at GTX. Walker lives in a large house in the suburbs
with his wife Maggie dresses expensively, drives a sports car, and generally lives the
good life. His superior, Gene McClary is outraged that cuts have been made in the
transportation division without his knowledge. He crosses swords at company
meetings with CEO James Salinger, who is strenuously attempting to raise the
 company’s share price in advance of an anticipated merger. Salinger cold-bloodedly
recognizes that job destruction will please and encourage Wall Street investors.

McClary lives in a mansion on the water, but his relations with his wife have gone
cold and he is conducting an affair with the head of human resources at GTX, Sally
Wilcox, the woman doing the firing. A third leading figure, Phil Woodward, began on
the shop floor and has worked his way up the corporate ladder. He fears for his job,
as contracts fall through and his age and salary work against him. Ultimately, both
McClary and Woodward will lose their jobs in a further round of dismissals. There
were degrading facts of joblessness, even for those who have held relatively
privileged positions- Walker and Woodward pointlessly show up at a job placement
center, send out hundreds of résumés, go on innumerable, fruitless interviews, while
McClary, now broken up with his wife, spends his days in depression at his lover’s
house.

At first Walker pretends to himself he’ll have a job in a few days’ time and tries to
keep the firing a secret. Piece by piece, the ornaments of their old, more opulent life
disappear: the country club membership, the Porsche, even his son’s Xbox, finally,
their house. Walker and his family end up at his parents’ home, the last place on
earth he desires to be. Woodward’s situation, if possible, seems even more
desperate. Expenses and bills mount. The prospect of a job at his age seems remote.
On the advice of a job counselor, Phil dyes his hair and edits his résumé to play
down his age. Meanwhile, his family continues to make expensive demands.
Ashamed of the reality, his wife orders him to stay out till 6 pm so the neighbors
won’t know he’s lost his position. In the end, Walker, humbled and made desperate
by his downfall, asks his brother-in-law, Jack Dolan, a small contractor, whose
assistance he previously scorned, for a job. He gets one, but as a laborer to begin
with.

Inevitably, the economic disaster produces a personal tragedy. In its aftermath,

McClary and Walker take a stroll in the old shipyard, now rusting and falling apart.
McClary talks about the old days when 6,000 men earned “an honest wage” there,
when the company built something you could “see, feel and touch … Now
everything’s gone.” In the lobby of GTX’s headquarters, McClary confronts Salinger,
his oldest friend and co-founder of the company. Accusingly, he points out that while
the thousands of layoffs were taking place, and employees lost houses and more,
Salinger had raked in $22 million. The latter tells McClary that the merger has gone
through, and his stock options are now worth $600 million.

In the end, it was Gene, with the verve and determination to start over showing
visibly in his eyes and jaw, who saves the day by starting a company, McLarry
Maritime and Associates with Bobby and the rest of the laid off employees of GTX.

 B. TEN (10) POSITIVE INFLUENCES/IMPACT ON INTERNATIONAL FINANCE AND

CORPORATE BUSINESS OPERATIONS
 The Company Men is a sincere effort to dramatize head-on the devastating
consequences of the crash of September 2008.
 Gives hope and inspiration to those employees and companies who were affected by
the global recession.
 It provides a realization on the importance and value of the employees.
 Tries to portray the "business community" that one of the principal character
believes in: a relationships with people, loyalty, experience, people working on
something together, to build it, to grow, so that all their lives might grow.
  Shows the impact of the crisis on a well-heeled and complacent layer is entirely
appropriate, and potentially could dispel “the dominant conventional illusions” and shake
“the optimism of the bourgeois world,” as a great Marxist once phrased it, if such
confidence can still be said to exist.
 Shows that firms must have a Severance packages for employees in case of layoffs.
 Shows the reality of business cycle.
 Shows some ways on how to boost stock prices.
 Shows ways on how to generate income if unemployment comes your way by just putting
up a business of your own that could benefits other people.
 Shows the impact of globalization business/ corporate world.

 C. TEN (10) CORPORATE WEAKENESSES/BUSINESS PRACTICES AFFECTING

INTERNATIONAL FINANCES AND CORPORATE BUSINESS
 AGE DISCRIMINATION. Age discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant
or employee) less favorably because of his age.
 PEOPLE ARE JUST FIGURES ON A BALANCE SHEET. Gene believes in a so-called
"business community", a relationships with people, loyalty, experience, people
working on something together, to build it, to grow, so that all their lives might
grow.
 INCREASING THE VALUE OF COMPANY BY “DOWNSIZING”. Firing people so the
shareholders can "maximize their investment”.
 THE MODERN CORPORATION IS A STERILE DARWINIAN SHARK TANK IN WHICH
THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS THE BOTTOM LINE. The old days of corporate
beneficence and loyalty to longtime employees are long gone.
 CORPORATE GREED. Keeping the stock price afloat partly to justify a million dollar
salary of a chief executive who views the thousands of ruined lives of former
employees as worth the short-term uptick.
 AT-WILL EMPLOYMENT. An employment relationship in which either party can
break the relationship with no liability which justifies downsizing.
 USE OF CORPORATE PROPERTIES OUTSIDE BUSINESS.
 SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH CO-EMPLOYEE.
 CEO’S DECISION MATTERS MOST.
 LAY-OFFS WITHOUT REASONABLE CAUSE.

 D. FIVE (5) RECOMMENDATIONS ON BUSINESS & FINANCE AS DEPICTED IN THE FILM

 E. PERSONAL REFLECTION ON THE FILM AND HOW DO YOU RELATE THIS TO YOUR OWN
REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE & FAMILY RELATIONSHIP

 F. MAJOR IMPACT OF THE FILM TO YOU AS A BUSINESS STUDENT AND FUTURE
MANAGEMENT PRACTICIONER

 The Company Men does a piercing job of making you feel the dehumanizing effects
that losing a job can have on grown men, but it's more truthful and devastating than
that. It explores the myriad ways good people find the strength to pick up the pieces
and recalibrate priorities when they get the wind knocked out of their sails, when
they lose the things—cars, appliances, tools, charge accounts, technological gadgets,
gym memberships, the stuff—that define their lives. This theme is cut from the same
bolt of cloth as the punchier, more entertaining Up in the Air, but The Company Men
shows the more brutal effects of downsizing in a cruel business world run by greed
and profit losses. It's happening to thousands of people every week (there's an
interesting long shot of Tommy Lee Jones in a glass window on the executive floor
gazing down on the parking lot as various employees from every rung on the
company ladder carry out potted plants, family photos and other office contents in
cardboard boxes). The film explores the desperate phases men in their 60s go
through to make ends meet while keeping up appearances, the relationships with
their confused families, the motivational speakers who take their money to teach
them how to get their enthusiasm back—always fearing there is somebody younger
waiting in the wings with no tuitions or house payments, willing to work for less
money and more hours.