Product Description

Dan is headed for a shakeup. He is demoted at work his new boss carter is half his age & his wife just told him shes pregnant with another child. Dan & carters uneasy friendship is thrown into jeopardy when carter falls for & begins an affair with dans oldest daughter alex. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 03/04/2008 Starring: Dennis Quaid Topher Grace Run time: 110 minutes Rating: Pg13

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16699 in DVD
• Brand: Universal
• Released on: 2005-05-10
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 109 minutes

Amazon.com
Nowadays it's rare to find a movie that pays attention to human weakness as well as strength, and that sees a whole person as having both. When a sports magazine gets bought by a media conglomerate, an ad sales executive named Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid, The Rookie) finds himself playing second-in-command to Carter Duryea, a hotshot barely half his age (Topher Grace, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!) whose marriage has just fallen apart. One evening Carter invites himself over to Dan's house to escape his loneliness, where he meets Dan's daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson, Lost in Translation). The two strike immediate sparks and when they run into each other later in the city, a relationship begins--which they discreetly keep from Dan. But the heart of the movie is not in its plot, but in the way that Dan responds to the news that his wife is pregnant, or how Carter tries to fortify his self-image with a new car. These aren't jokes; the actors inhabit these moments fully and turn them into psychological events. Quaid plays Dan as a simple man, but his straightforwardness feels genuine (rather than a failure of the writer's imagination). Grace and Johansson have terrific chemistry as lovers, but so do Grace and Quaid, both as rivals and as a substitute father and son. In Good Company isn't likely to win any awards, but it's honest and honorable; there's a core of truth to its characters and their problems aren't resolved too neatly. Sometimes, that's worth watching. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker
Topher Grace, almost unimaginably slender and young-looking, displaces the solid, rooted, fiftyish husband and father Dennis Quaid as the head of ad sales for an established sports magazine. Grace is now the boss, and though he knows how to deliver conglomerate-synergy spiel and get people "psyched" he hasn't a clue as to how to live his life. This brilliant orphan boy then falls in love with Quaid's college-age daughter, Scarlett Johansson. Paul Weitz's movie is synthetically plotted, but it has been written and directed with a heartening sensitivity, and Grace and Johansson are adorable together. Weitz offers some sharp (and not inaccurate) thrusts at the nastier side of corporate "culture." A commercial comedy made by people who know what they are doing. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

2.5 stars out of 4
The Bottom Line:

In Good Company is a rather forgettable movie; it doesn't do itself any favors by eschewing the primary romantic plot halfway through in favor of male bonding between Topher Grace and an annoying Dennis Quaid.

You will love this
This is a thoroughly enjoyable movie, from start to finish. Perfect acting, direction, dialogue, shots, editing. The music was icing on the cake. In a way, it sort of reminded me of "The Graduate", back in the day, with Dustin Hoffman. Not in the story, but the feel, and lessons learned. Light hearted, but serious. A film an adult will appreciate. Highly recommended.

Morality lessons in a feel good movie
Today's Hollywood produces movie after movie about humanity's negativity and our inevitable dystopian future. If not that, then the movie is an obvious homage to something so outlandish that it's not to be taken realistically. In Good Company, however, takes the opposite approach, showing genuine familial, work, and romantic relationships. With nearly no twists or surprises, almost no exaggeration whatsoever, this movie delivers as intended.

Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) is the director of marketing for a company being purchased by a multination conglomerate. Corporate restructuring brings about the obvious changes. As a result, most of Dan's team is fired, and his position is usurped by Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) - as the young, brash, conceited yet overmatched, buzz-word spouting whiz-kid - making Dan the second fiddle. Just like a formulaic black-white movie, where the white character inevitably learns to dance from the black character, Carter soon learns from the wiser, experienced, and worldly sage of marketing. Just think of Dan as Miyagi and Carter as Daniel-San; it only takes one good butt-kicking, literally in this movie, to realize how incompetent and unprepared you are when faced with an experienced adversary.

When Carter meets Dan's georgous, college-bound daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson), sparks fly, adding yet another juxtaposed subplot amidst the struggles of life, love, and corporate advancement.

Overall it's a decent, albeit predictable, somewhat bland movie that if nothing more, provides a reason to ogle Johansson and see Quaid turn in a great performance.