elshikh4 Don't let its outwards fool you. It's not a pure thriller. It is one biting movie about love and trust in modern times, yet through the shape of a thriller. Scriptwriter (Ross Thomas) made a world of betrayal, where everybody scheming everybody dirtily and endlessly. And the survivor could be the one who loves honestly for love, the one who's immaculate and ready to face !Perhaps, the end would be disappointing; it even may turn the whole thing into pointless movie. However, it got to end the 2 malicious worldly-wise leads by the hand of inexperienced idiot who closes her eyes while shooting guns, all for making the deep bitter paradox, and for the sake of assuring how a couple like this would one way or another end each other, and how the true lover can win at last (even forcedly!), especially with this easy naive solution of random festival of killing, where the bad guys go to hell, and the kind one hits the jackpot, and wins the revenge (How poetic, and fabricated, this justice was!). Not to mention that it didn't care about the rest of the characters' fates, which ultimately stamped it with the "deficient" mark, and it is.Despite that, it managed somehow to embody the concept of (Bad Company) whereas it's not a "bad intelligence", no, it's more like "evil association" that must eat and eat till it eats itself in the end. The movie's title got its double meaning already, but the movie itself wasn't perfectly satisfying in the both lines, expressly the superficial one, so that's where all the bad feeling about the movie may come from.Director (Damian Harris) filled it with stylish style. Everything was beautiful and anesthetically colorful. The image was so soft, the cinematography and the editing were always smooth, the clothes seemed sharp, even the smallest details were fine. Something to attract, bewitch, and make the irony with all the putrefaction within; where nothing is filthy but the whole moralities. I loved the private agency's set; it looked like luxurious prison, scary company, or fake monastery. Though, I felt some coldness when it came to dealing with what was inside the characters, which left a clear negative effect on the acting. Ellen Barkin was awful, aside from a poorly written role, her face was so provocatively dead, and originally she's pathetically sexy to be that irresistible Femme Fatale !Yes, it's partly amusing, acridly satirical, with a nasty character, capturing the outrageous sense of the 1980s' and the 1990s' erotic thrillers. But it's not a brilliant thriller, inasmuch as a movie about utterly unfaithful world, where all would kill or be killed simply for money and power. So when I listen to its clever sad music score, I feel the real motive of the movie, and I feel sad because the movie, as a whole, remains semi-contrived and imperfect though.

RanchoTuVu It's not the company you keep but the one you work for at issue here in this taut film about an ex-CIA agent who goes to work for a company that specializes in helping their corporate clients get the upper hand in any and all situations by any means necessary, but especially blackmail, as the central plot revolves around soborning a judge who has severely compromised his integrity by mounting up impressive gambling debts and extra-marital infidelity. Ellen Barkin plays the devious (bad) company recruiter who signs on ex agent Laurence Fishbourne whose 140 IQ proves no match for her physical talents. By bribing the compromised judge (David Ogden Stiers) they will rescue their client Walter Curl (Spalding Grey) from a lawsuit that claims that his company dumped cancer causing pollutants. Though the judge is a gambling philanderer, he's in nobody's pocket, and thus, after taking the bribe, votes his conscience on the case in question, and then opts out after sending his girlfriend (Gia Carides) to the Bahamas with the money. Meanwhile Barkin maneuvers Fishbourne through sex into killing company head Frank Langella, showing that IQ comes in a distant second to sex appeal. Nobody (except maybe Carides and Stiers, and to a certain extent Fishbourne) is going to win much sympathy from the audience, but the story stays on task all the way through, and the observations it casts on corportate behavior are not so far out.

hepasto I think it's a cool movie, really brings out the characteristic of different characters.Nelson Crowe is the control freak and the killer, great acting by Laurence Fishburne. These people are simply doing whatever they have to do, but not want to. They're all in massive pressure and you can feel it--thanks for the brilliant acting. The pressure is pushing everyone crazy and changing them. I think the best part of the movie is where Nelson pushes Margaret onto the table when she tries to fight back, and say "you're the angel I dreamed of". What a great social engineer! While in the last part, she simply had enough of his bullshit and couldn't take it no more. (as I said before, Nelson is the control freak)When Margarent killed the old guy, there was a moment where she was emotionally stunned, but she didn't want to show it before Nelson and they still had business to do.While the plot seems strange, and could be changed abit, it's still a great see would recommend anyone to see it. There are simply too much things in this film to mention. Be warned though the ending is quite disturbing some people might not like it.

jmorrison-2 Interesting, but oddly emotionless movie about corporate covert operatives. You can't quite get a handle on the characters, and the dialog is strangely void of real, personal interaction. At times, it's almost like listening to robots talk. The only real emoting is done by Ellen Barkin. It's hard to get a handle on her character; one minute she's coldly sneering at somebody, the next she's got neediness radiating from her eyes.Frank Langella plays the only seemingly decent human being in the whole bunch, even though he runs a covert company, which works at corporate espionage; bringing to bear any disgusting technique which will benefit his client's bottom line. Laurence Fishburne is very good in this as a coldly calculating operative. He oozes cool and menace as a ruthless agent, who will do whatever it takes to get the job done. Very interesting movie to watch, but these are people I hope to never come across.