The Company |  | Director: Mikael Salomon
Actors: Chris O'Donnell, Alfred Molina, Michael Keaton
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.95
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Rating:  36 reviews
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 286 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 21987
UPC: 043396219878
EAN: 0043396219878
Theatrical Release Date: August 5, 2007
Release Date: October 23, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 10/23/2007 Run time: 286 minutes
Amazon.com
Handsomely mounted, epic in scope, and featuring an outstanding cast, TNT's The Company might restore some much-needed luster to the image of the Central Intelligence Agency (then again, perhaps not). Based on Robert Littell's popular historical novel of the same name, the show commingles real and invented characters as it traces the CIA's role in several major events, from the earliest days of the Cold War through the collapse of the Soviet Union, with particular attention given to the division of Berlin into East and West in the 1950s, the anti-Communist uprising in mid-'50s Hungary, and the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation in the early '60s. The first of the miniseries' three parts introduces us to Yale graduates Jack McAuliffe (Chris O'Donnell), Leo Kritzky (Alessandro Nivola), and Yevgeny Tsipin (Rory Cochrane); the first two are recruited by the CIA, but the Russian-born Tsipin sides with the KGB. The initial focus is on the CIA's efforts to find a Soviet mole who's been interfering with the agency's work and putting many American lives at risk. Working with mentor Harvey "The Sorcerer" Torriti (Alfred Molina), who calls him "Sport" and delights in pointing out that such matters are nothing less than a life-and-death struggle between good and evil and right and wrong, McAuliffe skulks around Berlin, where his principal informant and soon-to-be love interest is a lovely young ballerina (Alexandra Maria Lara) with a few secrets of her own. Meanwhile, back in Washington, the colorfully-named CIA counter-intelligence expert James Jesus Angleton (a real guy portrayed with low-key intensity by Michael Keaton) slowly realizes that the mole in question is one of his old pals. And it doesn't stop there. Turns out there's another double agent (codename "Sasha") working for the Reds; this one's deeply embedded in the CIA, and Angleton, a chain-smoking obsessive whose behavior becomes increasingly cold and peculiar, devotes years (and most of the series' third installment) to outing him. The process by which he does just that, culminating in some fairly excruciating interrogation scenes, provides The Company's best moments--especially because we don't know until the very end whether Angleton has fingered the actual Sasha or not. Viewers unfamiliar with the CIA's history and methods aren't likely to be very encouraged by what's depicted here--especially in the second part, in which the agency's misadventures in Hungary and Cuba reveal it (as well as the U.S. government overall) to be not merely ineffective but disastrously inept, as well as shockingly callous and hypocritical when it comes to lending material support to the causes it claims to espouse. Still, the series does a good job with many of the elements common to such fare (Robert De Niro's 2006 film The Good Shepherd covers some of the same ground). Codes are written and deciphered. Secrets are kept… and revealed. Shots are fired, and some of them connect. People die, good and bad alike. And even if some of the scenes are a bit overheated and melodramatic, all in all, The Company (which was written by Ken Nolan, directed by Mikael Salomon, and produced by John Calley and Ridley and Tony Scott) is smart and entertaining. And some of it's even true. --Sam Graham Stills from The Company (click for larger image) Beyond The Company at Amazon.com 
Amazon.com DVD editors listmania:
The CIA on Film and TV | 
The Book | 
The Films of Ridley Scott |
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 36
 BEST SPY MOVIE / NOVEL, EVER!! October 5, 2009
Alan F. Blanche (Charleston, SC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm 63 years old; and, this Movie brought to Life the History I remember. The Russian Tanks Crushing the Hungarian Revolt, in 1958 & the Soviet Union's Invasion of Czechoslovakia, in 1968; the Building of the Berlin Wall & the Fiasco of The Bay of Pigs, in 1961; the Cuban Missile Crisis, in 1962; all the way down to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989. And, it showed the Double Agents: Philby, Burgess & MaClean. True, it showed the Flaws in our Foreign Policy; but, it also showed the Dedication of the Good Folks at the CIA! I had seen the TV Movie, when it first came out, back in 2007; and, after watching it again, via AmazonUnBox, I Enjoyed it so much, I will now Order the Book! Good Stuff!
Interesting & Well Acted September 15, 2009
jjorrs
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I Enjoyed This Mini-Series, Even Though It Was A Bit Slow To Start, The Acting Was Superb By The Entire Cast, I Recommend It To All Amazonian's
Top notch spy flick August 18, 2009
G.O.P for Me (Culpeper, VA)
Can't compare it to the book, nor do I want to. I am rating this purely on entertainment value as a movie. This is a suspenseful, riveting, and highly entertaining spy flick. This is not your average 90 minute run and gun shoot 'em up movie. It is journey into cold war espionage that is definitely worth watching.
In a wilderness of mirrors, what will the spider do August 8, 2009
C. CRADDOCK (Bakersfield)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Company is an epic mini-series, and if that sounds like an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp, or military intelligence, then that is a fitting tribute to its subject: The Central Intelligence Agency. The Company is about the CIA and it covers a span of 40 years -- focusing mainly on the Cold War, and three men who meet on a rowing team while attending Yale: Jack McCauliffe (Chris O'Donnell) and Leo Kritzky (Alessandro Nivola) go to work for the CIA, while Yevgeny Tsipin (Rory Cochrane) is recruited by the Soviets as a spy.
Jack is assigned to the Berlin office under Harvey Torriti (Alfred Molina), known as The Sorcerer. Jack falls for the first asset he handles, a ballerina with the code name Rainbow. My favorite line is when the Soviet agent threatens him with the revelation that they've seen the two together at the opera, he responds with "It was the ballet" before opening fire. Her cover was blown by a mole and she shoots herself to avoid capture. He is shattered by her death and haunted by wondering if her identity had been given up by The Sorcerer as a "barium meal" to flush out a mole. Just as barium is used as an X-ray radiocontrast agent for imaging the human gastrointestinal tract, information is released that a mole, or a double agent, will act on, and if so, then the identity of the mole is revealed. Did The Sorcerer use the ballerina, Rainbow, as a Barium Meal? Jack goes on to other adventures, notably the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and The Bay of Pigs.
Meanwhile, Yevgeny Tsipin leads an outwardly quiet life as a liquor delivery man, but in actuality, he is passing secrets to the Soviets. He listens to a radio broadcast, and whenever he hears a quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or Through the Looking-Glass, he knows to pay attention to the winning lottery numbers. He subtracts the lottery numbers from the serial number of a bill, revealing a phone number. Rory Cochrane does a good job as Yevgeny.
The Company covers quite a bit of territory, but there is so much to tell in a history of the CIA. There is almost "an embarrassment of riches" -- too much to tell even for a 6 hour + mini-series. Since the decision of what to leave in and what to leave out will almost certainly reveal the biases of the director and the editor, and when you are talking about a controversial subject like the history of the CIA it is impossible not to have biases, I think they have put out a fairly objective, though dramatized, version of the truth. Lefties will think it is too right wing nutty, and conservatives will say it is too leftist. It does question a lot of actions that were taken, but you might also come away with a new respect for the CIA, knowing what they were up against.
Jack, Harvey, Leo, and Yevgeny are all fictional characters, but James Angleton, played very well by Michael Keaton, was a real person, and quite a colorful one. Keaton even had to tone him down a bit, as he was such an unusual and complicated creature. Like the fictional characters from the rowing team Angleton also went to Yale, but instead of rowing he was a poet and, as a Yale undergraduate, editor of the literary magazine Furioso, which published William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings and Ezra Pound. While at Yale he was trained in The New Criticism and influenced by William Empson, author of 7 Types of Ambiguity. One of his teachers was Norman Holmes Pearson, a founder of American Studies.
During the Second World War Angleton served under Pearson in the counter-intelligence branch (X-2) of the Office of Strategic Services, in London, where he met the famous double agent H.A.R. ("Kim") Philby. Later, they would work particularly closely in Washington as Kim Philby, being groomed to head MI-6, was also in Washington, and Angleton was the head of Counterintelligence Staff at the CIA. They had regular lunches together until Philby was exposed as a spy for the Soviets.
Michael Keaton puts in a brilliant performance, covering all 7 Types of Ambiguity. As Angleton searches for "Sasha," a second mole described by a Soviet defector, you are never sure if he is paranoid, brilliant, or both. There is a very good scene where he talks to Jack McCauliffe about deception while tending his orchids. Orchids, you see, practice deception in order to get bees to pollinate them. Orchids also require infinite patience to cultivate, something Angleton has in abundance.
"Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the State."
~ James Jesus Angleton (1917-1987)
As he searched for more moles, he gleaned from the defector that the KGB was not only gathering information from the moles, but also planting false information manipulating the CIA to unwittingly assist the KGB in its objectives.
Angleton extrapolated from this his theory of a "wilderness of mirrors," (a reference to line 65 of T. S. Eliot's poem "Gerontion"), which proposed that the KGB was capable of manipulating the CIA to believe what it desired, and that the CIA could neither identify nor defend itself from this manipulation.
How should I use them for your closer contact?
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled
Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a sleepy corner.
~ Excerpt from Gerontion, Poems. 1920. by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
The 2006 film The Good Shepherd is loosely based on Angleton's life and his role in the formation of the CIA.
The term Angletonian is an adjective used to describe something conspiratorial, overly paranoid, bizarre, eerie or arcane.
A Scanner Darkly (2006) .... Rory Cochrane was Charles Freck
Spider-Man 2 (Widescreen Special Edition) (2004) .... Alfred Molina was Doc Ock / Dr. Otto Octavius
Frida (2002) .... Alfred Molina was Diego Rivera
Chocolat (2000) .... Alfred Molina was Comte Paul de Reynaud
Batman & Robin (1997) .... Chris O'Donnell was Robin / Dick Grayson
Dazed & Confused (Widescreen Flashback Edition) (1993) .... Rory Cochrane was Ron Slater
Scent of a Woman (1992) .... Chris O'Donnell was Charlie Simms
Batman (Two-Disc Special Edition) (1989) .... Michael Keaton was Batman / Bruce Wayne
Beetlejuice (1988) .... Michael Keaton was Beetlejuice
Night Shift (Keep Case) (1982) .... Michael Keaton was Bill Blazejowski
"Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then,
if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here
till I'm somebody else"
~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Bad Company July 27, 2009
LV (FRANKLIN, MA USA)
Unless memory fails, I would have to say this is the most entertaining spy film I have ever seen (of the serious and real sort). Take note,... it is of an epic scope. It is long and loaded with details, and could semi-loose you, so pay close attention. If you do, the pay-off is: you'll be deeply drawn in and you won't want it to end. The performances are outstanding, the perspective is balanced, and the filming is gorgeous. The spy "game" is understated, yet so entertaining, they really pulled it off. Whatever flaws this film may have aren't even worth mentioning. The best serious fact-based drama I've seen in a while.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 36
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