La regola del silenzio - The Company You Keep

The Company You Keep has a startlingly star-studded cast and I was surprised to see that most of them were in small, thankless roles. People like Sam Elliott, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper and Stanley Tucci have a couple, three scenes at most and aren't given much of anything to sink their teeth into. What I think this suggests is an immense respect for Robert Redford - there are very few directors who could assemble actors of that caliber for roles that probably anyone could play. And that respect is merited - with Company, Redford proves once again that he is an exceptionally talented director who deserves to be taken more seriously than he is.

It begins with the abrupt arrest of Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon), an American terrorist who had been living in hiding for decades since she was connected to a robbery that resulted in the murder of a security guard. Her arrest sparks renewed interest in the case and as a reporter (Shia LaBeouf) starts to dig deeper, a lawyer and newly single father (Robert Redford) realizes he is about to be uncovered and flees, leaving his daughter to stay with his younger brother (Chris Cooper) while he searches for an unknown something.

The foundation of Company is a clever, taut screenplay reminiscent of classic 70's American thrillers. It shocks the audience with reveal after reveal, always bringing up more questions and arousing more suspicions, but does so without a hint of self-importance and gracefully avoids inflated tension. Redford's graceful direction brings the electric writing to life and creates a suitably foreboding atmosphere - it's gritty, but not too dark; fast-paced, but not so much that it sacrifices plot or character; emotional, but not saccharine. For such an outlandish plot, Redford makes it feel as real as it possibly could. Too many modern thrillers like this try to make every beat into a high emotion scene, or build around the twist so it's as dramatic as possibly. Company avoids that - there is a refreshing lack of forced grandeur, and in its wake we get a surprisingly intimate film filled with truly fascinating characters and provocative moral questions that the screenplay doesn't answer for us.

The cast, as expected, are uniformly excellent. If there is a weak link it's Shia LeBeouf, whose real-life smug vanity suits the character but can only carry him so far when he's up against acting titans. He seems amateurish in his one-on-one scenes with Redford and Sarandon even though neither of them give especially domineering performances. Redford is an appropriately sympathetic lead but the supporting actors steal the movie - Susan Sarandon sets the bar very high right from the off. In her two or three short scenes, she reveals everything about her secretive, stony character; her microexpressions tell all. Cooper, Nick Nolte, Sam Elliott and Richard Jenkins light up their segments with their presences alone, while Brendan Gleeson delivers a hauntingly conflicted portrayal.

Julie Christie, though, is the standout. If this has to be her last screen appearance, it's comforting to know that she went out with a loud bang, playing a character so unlike anything she's ever done before. Her Mimi is ferocious and spirited, but her steely conviction can't quite mask the naive little girl who never really grew up hiding underneath. She communicates a world of internal conflict with a simple raise of her eyebrows, a pang of regret merely by letting her mouth fall open; she's a master of her craft, fully realizing her character in maybe 15 minutes of screen time where most of her lines hit the same note.

If there's one problem with the movie, it's that it's too short. A significant plot point towards the end isn't given the time and attention it deserves, considering its weight and implications. It felt like a wasted opportunity for an amazing, thematically fathoms-deep ending. However, the ending as it is is satisfying and well-done nonetheless, and cleanly wraps up an expertly crafted breath of fresh air for the genre. If only it had come out 35 years ago where it would have been right at home and probably would have garnered a better reception.

The first thing I would like to say about this film is that it kept me entertained for two hours without once glancing at the clock.This in itself is no mean achievement in an age where many movies are unnecessary long. Hollywood obviously believes length is important if you want to be successful. Entertaining as it was I'm not so sure it was plot that kept me watching as much as the parade of veteran actors on display. A rather disparaging comment and maybe one that should have been reserved for the confusing historical context of the storyline itself. Being of an age that remembers the activities of the Weather Underground I was under the impression that their acts of terrorism had ceased by the time the Vietnam peace agreement was signed in 1973 since the Vietnam War had been the organisation's raison d'etre but in this film the Weather Men are still on a mission as we approach 1980. The film also has amusing parallels with another piece of Redford left-wing theatre, 'The Way we were'. In this 1973 film the Redford character, a talented screen writer, backs away from confrontation with the Communist witch-hunt in Hollywood and seeks respectability by compromising his ability and forsaking the woman he loves in the process. His 2012 alta ego also loses his passion for the cause and sacrifices love and a daughter by walking away, 'I grew up'. In both films Redford played people much younger than himself. I'm not sure what this says about Robert Redford but I think my wife summed it up when she remarked after watching an early scene in 'Company, 'He's not the father of that young girl, is he?' Exactly, a 75 year old unconvincingly playing somebody twenty years younger while in 1973 film he was a 36 year college student! Anyway,enough of Redford who otherwise gives a competent performance. It was good to see Julie Christie again and who along with Nick Nolte, Susan Sarandon and Chris Cooper and still capable of teaching the young pretenders a thing or two. All in all and enjoyable and nostalgic evening's viewing.

Robert Redford stars with a wonderful cast of golden oldies in "The Company You Keep," a 2012 film.

Redford plays Jim Grant, an attorney and widower, who is contacted by a friend to help a former activist (Susan Sarandon). Now a housewife, she has just been arrested for the murder of a bank guard during a robbery many years earlier. At that time, she was a member of the notorious underground Weathermen group, which protested the Vietnam war, the killings at Kent State, and were part of the violence and chaos of the time. She was intending to turn herself in, but the FBI got to her first.

Grant says he can't help, but that puts an ambitious reporter, Ben Shepard (Shia LeBoeuf) onto him. It doesn't take long for Shepard to find out that Jim Grant is in reality Nick Sloan, part of the Weathermen, who has changed his identity. Grant/Sloan goes on the run, leaving his 11-year-old daughter with his brother (Chris Cooper). This tells the reporter that Sloan is not intending to go underground and take on a new identity, or he would have taken his daughter. Shepard thinks that Sloan is thing to clear his name once and for all, and is trying to locate other Weathermen in order to help him.

The cast includes, besides those listed above, Julie Christie, Stanley Tucci, Sam Elliot, Nick Nolte, and Brit Marling.

I had two major problems with this film, which was actually good if not terribly suspenseful. The first is, I was around during the era talked about in the film; and the second thing is, I remember what Robert Redford used to look like.

This film I believe is supposed to take place in the present day, yet everyone talks about these events that occurred "thirty years ago." Well, not to be picky, but "thirty years ago" is what, 1981, since the film was made in 2011. Youthful uprisings, protests against Vietnam, the Kent State killings -- I'm sorry, those happened 40-45 years ago. What happened thirty years ago? Dynasty. Ebony and Ivory. Diana and Charles got engaged. Reagan.

The second issue I had is this: Susan Sarandon, Richard Jenkins, and Stephen Root were the right age to play aging hippies (so is Chris Cooper but he didn't play one); Christie I could buy - first of all, she's fabulously beautiful and doesn't look her age - and secondly, her character was a Jane Fonda type, so she would have been active in her early thirties, as the character still was an activist. Nick Nolte - I'm not totally convinced that his character was an activist in his late twenties and thirties.

But Robert Redford is 76. Now, I've read where people think he looks good. I think he looks every millisecond of 76. He's obviously supposed to be playing someone 10 years younger, and to me, he doesn't pull it off. And the 11-year-old daughter - I find that interesting. They cast women as mothers who in real life are one year older than the person playing their sons, but no one blinks when Redford or Eastwood have children under ten.

Unfortunately, those distractions took away from this film for me. If I hadn't lived through that time, I could have gotten into it more. I admire Robert Redford, I like that he does this type of film, but he needs a small reality check. He wasn't a hippie then, and he's not an aging hippie now.

I AM CONVINCED THE CONSERVATIVE PRESS MISSED THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE MOVIE.

While I'm totally conservative, the talking heads that trashed this film blew it completely.

This film does not glorify terrorism. Quite the opposite. It shows how a person can cross the line from being an "activist" to being a felon/terrorist. It is sort of a retrospective of an activist's two lives - one he abandoned once he crossed the line, the other, the stolen life he built afterward.

There is a price one pays to the public through the court system. There is also a private price, or a personal price one also pays. In both cases,the focus is more on the private price he foisted off on loved ones to avoid paying his public price for his acts.

(The reader must understand that Sloan was guilty of some felony activities, but NOT the murder of the bank guard. His crimes, if caught, were worth some jail time, but not a life sentence for murder.)

People should watch this just so they could consider the idea that actions they might start can easily spin out of control, leaving them with consequences they might be forced to live with for the rest of their life, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, exact an even worse price upon all their loved ones.

This is a VERY tightly packed movie, hardly a word that isn't important to the development of the plot. Watch it closely.

This movie does need a bit more tension and rage at one particular point, but that's about the biggest flaw I saw.

Just so you know, Redford, 76, is playing the role of a late 60 year-old, and there are very important reasons why he has a young daughter. Now, it is up to you to see this film and figure out why.

By the way, this movie has a lot of great talent in it, and they each do very well for themselves and the presentation of the movie's theme. There are 14 class act performers, plus one. This would be a hard cast to play against, but "plus one" did a super job in her first movie role.

There's a lot to think about after watching Robert Redford's movie, 'The Company You Keep', although sadly, some of the ideas are provoked by their absence in the film, rather than their presence. The story is based on the real life activities of the Weather Underground, a radical left- wing organisation of then1970s; in this story, the police are finally closing in on the remnants of the gang (who are still wanted, among other things, for murder) after over 30 years. It's a good premise, and the movie is unfashionably sympathetic to its protagonists, respecting their idealism whatever wrong they did. Yet in some way it's the wrong kind of sympathy: the individuals are shown as parents, grandparents, living conventional lives, not completely rejected their own past but nonetheless no longer people one could imagine committing such acts. I think there's an interesting subject: what conventionally speaking might be considered defects would drive someone to ignore their own immediate interests for the sake of a cause (and ultimately drive them beyond mere idealism to take a Raskolnikovian view that their cause gives them the right to decide who lives and who dies). The idea of idealism as a social disease (because society depends on its members not asking too many questions) is an obvious and interesting question to raise in this film; but instead we see a group so well-socially adjusted that it's hard to believe in any of them as trigger-pullers, even in a former life.

There's a second strand to the film about a journalistic investigation of one of the suspects. Redford, of course, acted in one the great journalistic movies ('All the President's Men') and this one can't hold a candle to that; the story is obvious and feels basically unnecessary (except, presumably, that you can't get a film made these days unless you have some actors in it under the age of 30). I still quite liked the movie, but overall, it's a little too kind on the nature of journalists, terrorists and society alike; and fundamentally cuddly where it should be disconcerting.