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I stumbled upon this little gem late one night on HBO. I was channel surfing, drinking my tea, TRYING to get tired and go to bed. I ended up watching the entire film. In Good Company is a wonderfully sweet, poignant and heartfelt film about love, loss and appreciating what you have. Dennis Quaid plays Dan who is demoted at his job, after the company he is working for is bought by a competitor. Dan's new boss is Carter (Topher Grace). He is a 26 year old whipper snapper who is inept at everything EXCEPT work. His wife leaves him, he trashes his brand new Porsche 911 before he even gets it out of the parking lot and he is ALWAYS selling EVERYTHING. From how he is doing on a particular day to how much coffee he drinks. Everything is about selling, to him. At his core, Carter is a lonely and unhappy man, no matter how much he tries to sell everybody that he is not. That is until he meets Dan's lovely college attending daughter, Alex played by Scarlett Johansson. She is smitten with him, as well and the only time Carter is a normal human being is when he is with Alex. They make a cute couple. Only problem is Dan does not know the two are seeing each other. The other half of this film is about business and how Dan and Carter start to understand each other;eventually. Of course, Dan is not happy about being replaced with a young kid, half his age. Dan is the seasoned pro, but Carter knows very little but is a good seller. Paul Weitz wrote and directed this film and it is a light but very intelligent film with characters that are written as real as anyone you will see on film. Quaid is usually always good and here, it is no exception. But the real performance I was drawn to was that of Topher Grace. Despite the fact he is a bit of a putz, I still liked him and wanted him to find his happiness. His performance should have been an Oscar contender. It is that good of a performance. Grace and Johansson have wonderful chemistry together and I wanted them to be together. In Good Company deals with love, loss and appreciating what and who you have in life with humor and sadness that is uplifting and positive. It is a well acted, written and directed film that deserved some Oscar talk for the year it came out. I think in reality, it missed the deadline by a day or two for submission. What a shame. This plot may have been done before, but it has rarely been done as well as has been done here.

I watched this film late at night, and was wondering why this did not get a wider release? The Devil's Double is a tour de force in writing, directing and especially with Dominic Cooper playing both Uday and Latif. How difficult that must have been to play the psychotic Uday without making it campy and forced and then to draw it all back in to play the reserved Latif. But Cooper does it in a star making performance with style. Lee Tamahori directs this film with the understanding that Latif was a good man in a bad job and Uduy was a murderous, raping, pedophile who finally got what was coming to him. Not just by the Americans when the killed him in 2003 along with his rat brother but how he lived after Latif escapes his wrath. Since this is based on a true story I was in awe how anyone could make it through what Latif went through. The film starts as Latif is brought to one of Uduy's palaces and is asked to be a double for him to protect this monster. Latif says no but is forced as you will see how. This is a great film. it does not sugar the evil of the Hussein's from the father on down to the sons and it is noble to those who stand up to the evil. Christian Henson's score is top notch and he continues to stand out as a composer to keep an eye on. This is a fascinating and intelligent film and one of the best of 2011. **** out of 4.

Two words.......Emily Mortimer. While this film is loud, abrasive and grating it does have the lovely Emily Mortimer breathe life in to this films saggy underbelly. She is radiant, smart and sexy, sexy, sexy! The other leads do OK but it is Emily Mortimer who saves this film from being total nightmare. It's too bad. With a cast as good as this (Samuel Jackson, Robert Carlysle, Sean Pertwee, and Meatloaf) you would have expected a little more daring and imagination than what we were given. The action is OK, the dialog is sophomoric but there is some energy behind all of this emptiness but in the end Fomula 51 is just that...all formula. We've seen this before in other films and done better. Still, I can think of worse ways to spend an evening. ** out of 4.