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COMPANY MAN Send This Review to a Friend
There's no reason to keep company with "Company Man," a spy satire that quickly goes limp. Co-written and directed by Peter Askin and Douglas McGrath, this adventure into boredom also stars McGrath, yet another mistake. McGrath plays Allen Quimp, a pain in the butt whose life is humdrum but, to look better to his social-climbing nag of a wife (Sigourney Weaver), he pretends to be a C.I.A agent.
As any follower of trite screenplays might expect, he really does get involved with the C.I.A. Let's dispense with excruciating plot detail. Quimp drives everyone practically crazy, but McGrath is so bland an actor that he can't rise even to the low level of the material. The busy script, including anti-Castro gambits, skewers assorted characters as Cuba's former ruler Batista (Alan Cumming), Castro (Anthony LaPaglia) and an over-the-top anti-Communist (John Turturro).
The one bright spot is the uncredited appearance of Woody Allen as an American Ambassador who once screwed up and is now pursuing his favorite indulgences and remembering the good old days. Allen is very funny, but his presence provides only a quick fix. Otherwise, apart from an odd laugh here and there, the jokes just aren't funny enough and neither is the leading man. A Paramount Classics release.
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