I tuned in for Peter Gerety, an extraordinarily gifted actor, and was pleased to find that Billy Brown absolutely held his own, and then some, as his co-star. The movie also has its heart in the right place-- with the working class-- and it has a fairly fresh idea, with an unpredictable plot, and characters who are not one-dimensional, including not just laborers at the plastics plant (stay tuned for more on plastic), but management and corporate, too.
My frustrations may seem minor, but I think the movie was undermined by two bad decisions.
First, the imbalance of dialog between Brown as Walter Brewer and Gerety as Allery Parkes. Brewer is charismatic and talkative which is a stark difference from Parkes, who is given less than the bare minimum of lines to make him seem real. Gerety's character shut down after his son's suicide, but to a degree that doesn't help the film: it's unnecessarily severe. When a character is that withdrawn, I always wonder why anybody bothers to stick around-- including me.
Second, and this may seem petty, but I'm serious: Talia Shire had no business playing Mrs. Parkes. I'm not talking about her acting ability. I'm talking about her plastic face: the amount of cosmetic surgery she has obviously had undermines every scene she's in, especially when she's counting coupons at the grocery store. Once a performer gets that much work done, they forfeit the right to play a working stiff, or his wife.
