Bad Company

Interesting, but oddly emotionless movie about corporate covert operatives. You can't quite get a handle on the characters, and the dialog is strangely void of real, personal interaction. At times, it's almost like listening to robots talk. The only real emoting is done by Ellen Barkin. It's hard to get a handle on her character; one minute she's coldly sneering at somebody, the next she's got neediness radiating from her eyes.

Frank Langella plays the only seemingly decent human being in the whole bunch, even though he runs a covert company, which works at corporate espionage; bringing to bear any disgusting technique which will benefit his client's bottom line.

Laurence Fishburne is very good in this as a coldly calculating operative. He oozes cool and menace as a ruthless agent, who will do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Very interesting movie to watch, but these are people I hope to never come across.

I saw the film when it was first released. Recently it showed up on cable and decided to take a second look. As it was my impression then, I still think this elegant thriller could have used a more logical plot because there are many questions that even a second glance doesn't answer.

The film owes a great deal to the stylish production it was given by director Damian Harris and his team. The Vancouver location doesn't take away from Seattle, where it's supposed to take place. The excellent cinematography of Jack N. Green adds dimension to the movie.

Laurence Fishburne, as the cool Nelson Crowe, is a major asset to the picture. So is Ellen Barkin, an actress that is always good to watch and is sadly missed from the screen, as she hasn't made a film in years. Frank Langella, Michael Beach, and above all, Gia Carides, made tremendous contribution to the film.

This movie is proof-positive that everything is not for everyone,and in this case,that is unfortunate.The criticisms leveled at this film usually mention its 'slow pace' or its 'simplistic writing',as if every film needs to be directed by John Woo or written by David Mamet.I enjoyed it tremendously because it spit in the face of the usual textbook narrative themes found in nearly every movie made before or since.It champions its amoral characters,treating them like golden gods and giving them plenty of room to play.When you've found a film where the most sympathetic character is someone's conniving mistress,it is cause for much celebration! These characters are not just amoral,they are deliciously amoral and quite nonchalant about it!

I love the degree of sophistication that each character possesses,treating each other as petty contrivances standing in the way of their decidedly selfish goals.They absolutely reek of elegance.Even their conflicts are handled in a gentlemanly manner,like being slapped with a silk glove instead of the customary right cross or knee to the groin.The bullets flying about even seem to adhere to some sort of proper etiquette!The characters even refuse to die wearing anything off the rack!

This film is more about gracious duels than cacophonous shoot-outs and car chases.It is,quite simply,a film for the sophisticate.The person who admires the cool detachment of Hannibal Lecter(minus his dietary proclivities),or the person who has an especially warm spot for humorous lines that only aspire to deliver a wicked grin instead of a hearty guffaw.This movie fully realizes that most of its characters are unapologetic elitists,and it applauds them.Nowhere is this more clear than in the character portrayed by Daniel Hugh Kelly.His elegantly evil performance is so deliciously smarmy that it was obviously created for the sole purpose of providing that wicked grin that I spoke of before.

If you consider yourself more trip-hop than hip-hop,more Oscar De La Renta than Old Navy,more Paris in the spring than Peoria in the summer,then this is the film for you!

This film is my all time favorite for Larry Fishburne, one of the most charismatic Black actor in Hollywood, unfortunately underrated for my taste. In this film, he has not a specific Black character's one, he could be a white one, see? He is fantastic here, and any lead character would be so in a such cynical, ruthless, disgusting character, so unusual in a movie. But the topic of the CIA and its numerous off shore "phantom" cells, operating in black actions of blackmail and assassinations is very helpful to provide such characters. It could have been a very good series. A little complex, I admit, but all Ross Thomas's novels were too. Ross Thomas is the screenwriter of this awesome underrated film. Ellen Barkin has here a role very close to the one she had in JOHNNY HANDSOME, though a total different story. But the ending is very close. And in this story, you have some good supporting characters study. And a so fantastic aesthetics in camera movements, such a this one after 78 minutes, where a supporting character arrives in a hotel to meet Fishburne's character, enjoy the scene just before the supporting character is shown, the lady swimming in the pool...And not only this sequence; the movie is full of this kind of scenes.

Underrated, gripping thriller was a big box-office failure but it deserves a second chance on home video. Tightly plotted (there's always something happening, but the complications never get too confusing) and smoothly directed, it's a movie that knows how to keep you absorbed, even though its nihilistic ending is slightly cliched. Give it a try. (***)