Well, this is the movie to see. I'd read good things about it when it came out last year in the States so I was looking forward to its coming. It turns out it was worth waiting for.

The basic premise is that two guys are sent out of town for work for six weeks. They concoct this idea to both woo the same woman for those six weeks, send her flowers, take her out to dinner etc, and then dump her mercilessly when the time to leave comes. On top of this, they want to target someone who is particularly vulnerable. This way, their plan will be all the more devastating.

Be warned: this movie is not for the faint-hearted. There is no blood, no gore, very little swearing. There is, however, a complete lack of morals from the leads. This is not a nice world, either in the love arena or the work-place. If you're looking for a happy little Disney movie then In the Company of Men is not for you.

It's being billed as a black comedy which is, I think, a bit misleading. There are parts of it which are particularly funny in a black sort of way, but this is not a comedy; this is a tragedy. It's a brief glimpse in to the lives of these three people for a six week period.

So far, you're probably wondering why I think it's so good. There are a few reasons for my high praise. First, the ambiguity of the movie. One never really knows what's going on. Nobody is completely honest with each other; it's hard to know why people are doing certain things and, at times, just when you think you know why someone is doing something, the movie changes direction. This movie left me with so many questions. That's not always a plus but in this case it is. These aren't questions like "why on earth did they cast so-and-so?" Instead, I was left thinking "Are there really people like this?"; "What if Howard (Mr. Matt Malloy) had behaved differently?"; "What was Chad's (Mr. Aaron Eckhart) motivation?" It's the sort of movie that I can think about for hours afterwards, and I like that in a movie.

Secondly, the performances are great. Everyone is completely believable in their roles, particularly the three leads. The ambiguity above is due to superb performances from the cast. Unlike lots of movies where you can tell exactly what is going on from the frown, or the serious glance, in In the Company of Men, people appear just as in real life; one never knows exactly what anyone is thinking, we're all just guessing based on visual cues and previous experience. When Chad and Howard are talking, we're never quite sure who's kidding whom and what they have to gain by what they're doing. I found myself trying to work out these people just like I would when meeting people in real life. This is not to say that they are in any way stand-off-ish. I definitely empathised with the characters all the time I was trying to work them out.

There have been some comments made that this is a sexist movie but I don't think there's anyway to come to that conclusion. There are sexist people in this film but men definitely come off looking worse. Perhaps the most sexist thing about this movie is that the men have all the important jobs and the women are doing the typing but that probably reflects reality in a lot of companies. I think it also reflects the characters view of the world: they probably only see women in the role of typists.

Mr. Neil LaBute, in his directorial debut, has come up with a brilliant movie. At times I laughed out loud at the cruelty of his characters, but mostly I was just incredibly interested in them, unsure of what was going to happen next and who was manipulating whom. As gripping and suspenseful as they come, In the Company of Men gets serious praise from me.

Rating: HD