Movie Reviews by Michael Phillips

The Company You Keep Movie Review & Trailer

Some actors are lucky. In the third act of their careers, they become dream versions of their own parents, or grandparents. Paul Newman did that. So did Katharine Hepburn. We got to know them, and love them, at one age; then, against every Hollywood dictum, they were allowed to mature, to mellow, as they acquired a few more years. They weren't competing with their iconic youthful images so much as putting our memories of those early years to good use, as the crow's feet, slowed gait and thinning hair came along and changed them. It's a privilege to watch an actor age gracefully in the movies; so few are given the chance or the roles.

Robert Redford is a slightly different case.

He's not aging gracefully; he's aging supernaturally. He's now 76. He looks terrific, and it's movie-star terrific, which makes it harder for him to figure out how to play an ordinary (or even extraordinary) character who happens to be getting on. The copious and permanently wind-swept hair remains ready for its close-up, and there's a moment in Redford's new film "The Company You Keep" when his character, a '60s radical long in hiding and wanted for murder, runs down a dark street at night, thinking he's being followed. It's as if the Redford of "All the President's Men" nearly 40 years ago never stopped running once he met with Hal Holbrook in that D.C. parking garage.

Taken from a novel by Neil Gordon, "The Company You Keep" is livelier than the last couple of films directed by Redford, "Lions for Lambs" and "The Conspirator." It's best enjoyed as an actors' showcase. Premise: Redford is Jim Grant, a progressive public interest lawyer living in Albany, N.Y. He's a widower (the wife in the novel wasn't dead, just a trashy mess of an ex) raising a preteen daughter on his own. Then a cub reporter (Shia LaBeouf) ferrets out the truth on this man: He's really a former member of the bomb-throwing, bank-robbing Weather Underground anti-war collective.

So Jim runs. He has his name to clear and a daughter to protect. Jim and the reporter, Ben, become ideological frenemies of a sort, taunting each other with arguments of liberal idealism versus apolitical cynicism. The Redford character darts across the country, contacting his former Weather Underground associates, with the purpose of finding his great love, the one they call Mimi, who now smuggles marijuana for a comfortable living and who considers her old flame a sellout to the cause.

Mimi's played by Julie Christie, whose beauty remains undimmed by the years. Better still, it's a face that hasn't been messed with. She looks her age, even if her character as written by screenwriter Lem Dobbs is a smug finger-wagger.

The movie as a whole is like that. (If its brand of liberal despair feels strident to a liberal, I don't know what the other half of the country will make of "The Company You Keep.") Wisely, though, the story acknowledges a full and fractious spectrum of lefty-ism, from Grant's nonviolence credo to the "burn, baby, burn" mentality of some of his colleagues. Nick Nolte shows up for a couple of scenes as one ex-Weather member, and though I couldn't catch most of his dialogue, it's always a pleasure to watch him. Richard Jenkins enjoys himself as a jumped-up Bill Ayers-type revolutionary now teaching on the university level. Terrence Howard plays the FBI agent on the hunt.

The novel was a digital epistolary, told through emails written by the protagonist to his teenage daughter. The movie struggles to turn the story into a paradoxical easygoing thriller, befitting the age bracket of its key ensemble members. The other half of "The Company You Keep," the one with LaBeouf digging for clues to his quarry's past, features such worthy young talents as Brit Marling and Anna Kendrick. But this is Redford's show, and Christie's, and Jenkins'. And Susan Sarandon's. And when Brendan Gleeson shows up, his scenes may be exposition-heavy and not particularly well-written, but you think: Good old Brendan Gleeson. There's a face.

"The Company You Keep" - 2.5 Stars

MPAA rating: R (for language).

Running time: 2:05.

Cast: Robert Redford (Jim Grant/Nick Sloan); Shia LaBeouf (Ben Shepard); Stanley Tucci (Ray Fuller); Sam Elliot (Mac Mcleod); Anna Kendrick (Diana); Brendan Gleeson (Henry Osborne).

Credits: Directed by Robert Redford; written by Lem Dobbs, based on the novel by Neil Gordon; produced by Bill Holderman, Nicolas Chartier and Redford. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

"The Company You Keep" Movie Trailer

 

About the Movie "The Company You Keep"

Jim Grant (Robert Redford) is a public interest lawyer and single father raising his daughter in the tranquil suburbs of Albany, New York. Grant's world is turned upside down,when a brash young reporter named Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) exposes his true identity as a former 1970s antiwar radical fugitive wanted for murder. After living for more than 30 years underground, Grant must now go on the run. With the FBI in hot pursuit, he sets off on a cross-country journey to track down the one person that can clear his name.

Shepard knows the significance of the national news story he has exposed and, for a journalist, this is an opportunity of a lifetime. Hell-bent on making a name for himself, he is willing to stop at nothing to capitalize on it. He digs deep into Grant's past. Despite warnings from his editor and threats from the FBI, Shepard relentlessly tracks Grant across the country.

As Grant reopens old wounds and reconnects with former members of his antiwar group, the Weather Underground, Shepard realizes something about this man is just not adding up. With the FBI closing in, Shepard uncovers the shocking secrets Grant has been keeping for the past three decades. As Grant and Shepard come face to face in the wilderness of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, they each must come to terms with who they really are.

One of Hollywood's most acclaimed filmmakers and actors, Oscar winning director Robert Redford (Ordinary People; Quiz Show; The Sting) directs and heads an all-star ensemble that includes Shia LaBeouf (Transformers: Dark of the Moon) as determined reporter Ben Shepard, and Academy Award®-winner Julie Christie (Red Riding Hood) as Mimi Lurie, the woman inescapably linked to Grant's past and his future. The cast also includes various figures tied to Grant's previous life as an antiwar radical: Sam Elliot (Up In The Air) as Mimi Lurie's current partner, Mac McLeod; Oscar-nominee Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) as respected history professor Jed Lewis; Oscar-nominee, Nick Nolte (Warrior) as the ever-loyal Donal; and Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise; Dead Man Walking) as housewife-cum-fugitive, Sharon Solarz, whose dramatic arrest sets the story in motion.

Additional cast members include: Oscar winner,Chris Cooper (Adaptation) as Grant's brother, Daniel Sloan; Jackie Evancho (America's Got Talent) as Grant's daughter, Isabel; Golden Globe nominee Brendan Gleeson (The Guard; In Bruges) as Henry Osborne, a retired police chief harboring secrets of his own; Brit Marling (Another Earth; Sound of My Voice) as Osborne's daughter, Rebecca; Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick (50/50; Up in the Air) as Diana, a junior FBI agent; Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci (The Hunger Games) as Shepard's editor, Ray Fuller; and Oscar nominee Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow) as Cornelius, a senior FBI agent determined to bring Grant to justice.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP is based on the novel by Neil Gordon and adapted for the screen by Lem Dobbs (Haywire). The film is directed by Robert Redford. It is produced by Academy Award® winner Nicolas Chartier (The Hurt Locker), Robert Redford and Bill Holderman (The Conspirator; Lions for Lambs). The executive producers are Craig J. Flores (Immortals) and Shawn Williamson (50/50)

"The Company You Keep" Movie Review - "The Company You Keep" starring Robert Redford & Shia LaBeouf

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