The Company You Keep (film)

Last updated
The Company You Keep
The Company You Keep poster.jpg
U.S. theatrical release poster
Directed by Robert Redford
Written by Lem Dobbs
Based onThe Company You Keep
by Neil Gordon
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Adriano Goldman
Edited by Mark Day
Music by Cliff Martinez
Production
company
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Release dates
  • September 6, 2012 (2012-09-06)(Venice)
  • April 5, 2013 (2013-04-05)(U.S.; theatrical)
Running time
125 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2 million (est.) [1]
Box office$19.6 million [2]

The Company You Keep is a 2012 American political thriller film starring Robert Redford and Shia LaBeouf and was directed by Redford. The script was written by Lem Dobbs based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Neil Gordon. [3] The film was produced by Nicolas Chartier (Voltage Pictures), Redford and Bill Holderman.

Contents

The story centers on recent widower and single father Jim Grant, a former Weather Underground anti-Vietnam War militant wanted for a bank robbery and murder. Grant has hidden from the FBI for over 30 years, as an attorney in Albany, New York. He becomes a fugitive when his true identity is exposed by Ben Shepard, an aggressive young reporter. Grant must find his ex-lover, Mimi, the one person who can clear his name, before the FBI catches him. Otherwise, he will lose everything, including his 11-year-old daughter Isabel. While Ben struggles with ethical issues as a journalist, Jim and his old friends from the Weather Underground must live with the consequences of their radical past.

After film festival screenings in September 2012, the film's first theatrical release was in Italy in December 2012. A U.S. limited release began in April 2013, followed by wider release later in the month and releases in various foreign markets through December 2013. The film received a mixed reception from the critics in the U.S. but a generally favorable one abroad. It grossed $5.1 million in the U.S. and Canada, with foreign sales reaching $14.5 million. [2]

Plot

A recently widowed single father, Jim Grant, is a former Weather Underground militant wanted for a 1980 Michigan bank robbery and the murder of the bank's security guard. He has been hiding from the FBI for over thirty years, establishing an identity as a defense attorney near Albany, New York. When Sharon Solarz, another former Weather Underground member, is arrested on October 3, 2011, an ambitious young reporter, Ben Shepard, smells an opportunity to make a name for himself with a national story. His prickly editor, Ray Fuller, assigns him to follow up. Ben's ex-girlfriend, Diana, is an FBI agent, and he presses her for information about the case. She tells him to look up a Billy Cusimano. Billy, an old hippie with a history of drug arrests who runs an organic grocery, is an old friend of Sharon Solarz and a former client of Jim's. Billy is disappointed that Jim doesn't want to take Sharon's case, and he conveys this information to Ben when Ben questions him.

Ben pursues Jim and tries to question him, but Jim is evasive. Spooked by the federal investigation, Jim takes his 11-year-old daughter Isabel on "a little trip", driving north at first to throw off his pursuers. Ben learns that Mimi Lurie, an accomplice in the Michigan bank robbery, was last seen in Canada. A private investigator helps Ben find out that Jim had no Social Security number prior to 1979 and finds a copy of Jim Grant's California death certificate. Ben concludes that Jim is really Nick Sloan, another former Weatherman, and writes an article breaking this news, creating a sensation and accelerating the FBI's interest.

Meanwhile, Jim and Isabel arrive in New York City. They go sight-seeing and check into a fancy hotel. The manhunt for Jim/Nick is now national news. While Isabel is sleeping, Jim leaves the room key hidden in the hotel lobby, along with legal papers giving Jim/Nick's brother, Daniel Sloan, guardianship of Isabel. Daniel retrieves them, and Isabel. FBI agents, under the direction of Diana's boss Cornelius, have been tracking Daniel and follow him to the hotel. They nearly catch Jim there, but Jim creates a diversion and escapes; FBI agents spot Daniel leaving with Isabel and stop them. Sharon Solarz refuses to provide any information to the FBI, but she agrees to talk to Ben. She is unrepentant about her radical activism in the Weather Underground and reveals that Nick and Mimi had a love affair long ago. Ben also questions Daniel and writes a gratuitously unflattering piece about him, annoying Ben's boss.

Jim/Nick goes to Milwaukee to find Donal, his old best friend, who owns a lumber yard. Donal discourages him from looking for Mimi, but tells him to contact former SDS member, history professor Jed Lewis. Jed disagreed with Nick over using violence, resenting the Weather Underground for endangering their nonviolent counterparts. He initially refuses to help Jim, but when he finds out that Jim has a young daughter, he uses his connections with their old radical friends to track down Mimi. At Big Sur, California, Mimi imports marijuana into the U.S. aboard a sailboat as part of an operation run by Mac McLeod, Mimi's boyfriend. Through Jed, Jim reaches Mac, who informs him that Mimi left to go "inland". Jim knows where she is going.

Ben begins to feel that Jim's actions make no sense for a guilty man. Defying his boss, he goes to Michigan to investigate the original crime. He meets with retired cop Henry Osborne, who was the first person to investigate the robbery. Osborne refuses to talk in front of his adopted daughter Rebecca, and Ben senses that he is hiding something important. Ben does some research, finding that Osborne had strong connections to Mimi's family before the bank robbery. He learns of the Linder-Lurie company property on the Michigan upper peninsula near Ontario, Canada. Osborne acknowledges that if Mimi were to come forward with the information that Jim was not present at the robbery (although Jim's car was used during it), Jim would be cleared of all charges. Later, Ben flirts with Rebecca.

Jim meets Mimi in a secluded cabin on the Linder-Lurie property. She is still passionate about the goals of the Weathermen and unapologetic about her old actions, but Jim argues that life has changed. Jim asks Mimi to turn herself in and confirm his alibi, for the sake of his daughter Isabel. He doesn't want to leave Isabel behind and repeat the mistake that he and Mimi made 30 years earlier by giving up their own daughter. Mimi reveals that their daughter is a beautiful young woman living in Ann Arbor. Meanwhile, Ben realizes that Jim is searching for Mimi, and that Rebecca is their daughter. He advises Rebecca to speak to her father. The next morning, Mimi flees the cabin to sail to Canada just as Ben arrives to find Jim. Ben reveals that he knows the truth about Rebecca and Osborne; Jim says that Ben must decide whether or not to keep the secret. Jim leaves the cabin so that the FBI will chase him instead of Mimi. Cornelius catches Jim, and Rebecca soon learns of the circumstances of her adoption. Meanwhile, Mimi turns her boat around and returns to the U.S. to give herself up. The next day, Jim is freed from jail and reunites with Isabel. Ben decides not to expose Osborne's actions of 30 years before and to protect Rebecca's true identity.

Cast

Production and distribution

Produced by Nicolas Chartier (Voltage Pictures), Redford and Bill Holderman, [4] [5] the movie was filmed in Vancouver in late 2011. [6] [7] The film's "moody ... contemporary" score is by Cliff Martinez, its editor is Mark Day, and cinematography is by Adriano Goldman. [8] The first trailer for the movie was released on August 30, 2012. [9]

The film premiered on September 6, 2012, at the 69th Venice International Film Festival [10] and then played at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2012. [11] [12] Sony Pictures Classics distributed the movie in the United States, [4] and StudioCanal acquired the United Kingdom distribution rights. [13]

The Company You Keep was released in Italian theatres in December 2012, [14] earning more than $4.8 million there. [15] Its limited release in the U.S. began in New York and Los Angeles on April 5, 2013, after which it received wider North American release. [2] [16] European, Australasian, South American, Middle-Eastern and Asian releases continued from April to December 2013. The first run of the film concluded in the U.S. in July 2013. [17]

The film grossed $5.1 million in the U.S. and Canada, with foreign box office sales reaching $14.5 million (excluding China), for a worldwide theatrical total of $19.6 million. [2] The Company You Keep was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 13, 2013. [18]

Reception

In early reviews from the Venice Film Festival, Variety called the film an "unabashedly heartfelt but competent tribute to 1960s idealism ... in its stolid, old-fashioned way, it satisfies an appetite, especially among mature auds, for dialogue- and character-driven drama that gets into issues without getting too bogged down in verbiage. ... There is something undeniably compelling, perhaps even romantic, about America's '60s radicals and the compromises they did or didn't make". [19] The Hollywood Reporter praised the cast, especially Sarandon and Marling, and termed the film "a tense yet admirably restrained thriller ... Adapted with clarity and intelligence ... and lent distinguishing heft by its roster of screen veterans, this gripping drama provides an absorbing reflection on the courage and cost of dissent. ... While it provides for some passing commentary on the journalistic process and the slow death of print media, making the ambitious reporter such a driving figure perhaps mutes the focus a little. ... The storytelling is nonetheless robust and thematically rich". [8]

In its U.S. release, the film received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 54%, based on 123 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Company You Keep is a (frustratingly) slow-burning thriller about very contemporary issues." [20] Time magazine wrote: "With a welcome mixture of juice and grit, the movie dramatizes the lingering conundrums of young people in the time of the Vietnam morass. ... [The film] is streaked with melancholy: a disappointment that the second American Revolution never came. ... Nonetheless, this is a pulsating drama of a man who goes on an intricate, often interior journey to outrun his past." [21] NPR's Linda Holmes called the story "undercooked" and thought that "it all seems to have been a lot of noise and running for nothing". [22] Rex Reed wrote in The New York Observer that "From ... a dazzling display of perfect performances, to the complex emotional relationships that result in guilt by association, the disparate elements in The Company You Keep are robustly collated by the keen, well-crafted direction of a master filmmaker at the top of his form." [23]

TCYK LLC file sharing claims

In July 2015 TCYK LLC, a US-based company, obtained a court order requiring that Sky Broadband, a UK company, disclose customer information corresponding to IP addresses that it alleged had infringed its copyright to The Company You Keep by unlawfully downloading and sharing the film on the internet during 2013. TCYK LLC then sent letters to dozens of these customers accusing them of such sharing and demanding a response, threatening "adverse costs consequences" for a failure to respond. Sky suggested that its customers contact for assistance Citizens Advice, an organization critical of this practice, known as a "speculative invoicing claim". [24] TCYK LLC later sent a follow-up letter to Sky customers offering to settle the claim for a proposed amount of money and other conditions. BBC News reported that the file could have been shared by someone using a customer's wi-fi signal. [25]

Awards

AwardYearCategoryRecipientResult
Venice Film Festival [26] 2012 Giovani Giurati del Vittorio Veneto Film Festival Award Robert Redford Won
Open PrizeWon

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weather Underground</span> American far-left militant organization, 1969–77

The Weather Underground was a far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organized as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) national leadership. Officially known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) beginning in 1970, the group's express political goal was to create a revolutionary party to overthrow the United States government, which WUO believed to be imperialist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Redford</span> American actor and filmmaker (born 1936)

Charles Robert Redford Jr. is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades such as an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1996, the Academy Honorary Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and the Honorary César in 2019. He was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014.

<i>Point Break</i> 1991 film by Kathryn Bigelow

Point Break is a 1991 American crime action film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by W. Peter Iliff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riley Keough</span> American actress (born 1989)

Danielle Riley Keough is an American actress. She made her feature film debut in a supporting part in the musical biopic The Runaways (2010), portraying Marie Currie. Keough subsequently starred in the independent thriller The Good Doctor (2011), before being cast in a minor role in Steven Soderbergh's comedy film Magic Mike (2012). She had her first big-budget release in the action feature Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

<i>Blood Work</i> (film) 2002 film by Clint Eastwood

Blood Work is a 2002 American mystery thriller film starring and directed by Clint Eastwood, who also produced. It co-stars Jeff Daniels, Wanda De Jesús, and Anjelica Huston. It is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Michael Connelly.

David Gilbert is an American radical leftist who participated in the deadly 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored vehicle. Gilbert was a founder of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and became a member of the Weather Underground. Gilbert, who served as the getaway driver in the robbery, was convicted under New York's felony murder law in the killing by co-defendants of two Nyack, New York police officers and a Brink's security guard.

<i>Crossroads</i> (2002 film) Film by Tamra Davis starring Britney Spears

Crossroads is a 2002 American teen road comedy-drama film directed by Tamra Davis, from a screenplay by Shonda Rhimes. The film stars Britney Spears, Anson Mount, Zoe Saldana, Taryn Manning, Kim Cattrall, and Dan Aykroyd. Set in Georgia, its plot centers on three teenage girls on a cross-country road trip, as they find themselves and their friendship in the process.

Sarah Alexander is an English actress. She has appeared in British series including Armstrong and Miller, Smack the Pony, Coupling, The Worst Week of My Life, Green Wing, Marley's Ghosts and Jonathan Creek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Osborne</span> American film historian and actor (1932–2017)

Robert Jolin Osborne was an American film historian, television presenter, author, actor and the primary host for more than 20 years of the cable channel Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Prior to hosting at TCM, Osborne had been a host on The Movie Channel, and earlier, a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter. Osborne wrote the official history of the Academy Awards, published in 1988.

<i>All the Presidents Men</i> (film) 1976 film by Alan J. Pakula

All the President's Men is a 1976 American biographical political drama thriller film about the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, with a screenplay by William Goldman, it is based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the two journalists investigating the scandal for The Washington Post.

<i>The Great Gatsby</i> (1974 film) 1974 film directed by Jack Clayton

The Great Gatsby is a 1974 American romantic drama film based on the 1925 novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The film was directed by Jack Clayton, produced by David Merrick, and written by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston, Bruce Dern, and Karen Black. The plot concerns the interactions of writer Nick Carraway with enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby (Redford) and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan (Farrow), amid the riotous parties of the Jazz Age on Long Island near New York City.

<i>Delinquent Daughters</i> 1944 film by Albert Herman

Delinquent Daughters, or Accent on Crime, is a 1944 American drama film directed by Albert Herman and starring June Carlson, Fifi D'Orsay and Margia Dean. An exploitation film, it is about a police investigation into the suicide death of a high school girl and the hard-partying teenagers at a party prior to the incident.

Brian Flanagan is an American former militant and activist who was a member of the radical left organizations Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).

<i>The Town</i> (2010 film) 2010 American crime drama film directed by Ben Affleck

The Town is a 2010 American crime thriller film co-written, directed by, and starring Ben Affleck, adapted from Chuck Hogan's 2004 novel Prince of Thieves. It also stars Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Titus Welliver, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper and Slaine, and follows a Boston bank robber who begins to develop romantic feelings for a victim of one of his previous robberies, while he and his crew set out to get one final score by robbing Fenway Park.

<i>30 Minutes or Less</i> 2011 film by Ruben Fleischer

30 Minutes or Less is a 2011 American action comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, Michael Peña, and Fred Ward. The story follows a pizza delivery boy who is strapped with a bomb and forced to, with the help of his friend, rob a bank in exchange for disarming it. Stuart Cornfeld, Ben Stiller, and Jeremy Kramer produced the film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Hamm</span> Irish film, television, and theatre director and producer

Nick Hamm is a film, television, and theater director and producer born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He won a BAFTA for his drama The Harmfulness of Tobacco starring Edward Fox.

<i>A Walk in the Woods</i> (film) 2015 film by Ken Kwapis

A Walk in the Woods is a 2015 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Ken Kwapis and starring Robert Redford, Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson. Based on the 1998 book of the same name by Bill Bryson, it was released on September 2, 2015, by Broad Green Pictures.

<i>Electric Slide</i> (film) 2014 biographical crime film directed by Tristan Patterson

Electric Slide is a 2014 American biographical crime film written and directed by Tristan Patterson. It stars Jim Sturgess as Los Angeles–based bank robber Eddie Dodson, who robbed 64 banks in 1983 before he was caught. It premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival and received a limited theatrical release in April 2015.

<i>The Old Man & the Gun</i> 2018 film by David Lowery

The Old Man & the Gun is a 2018 American biographical crime film written and directed by David Lowery, about Forrest Tucker, a career criminal and prison escape artist. The script is loosely based on David Grann's 2003 article in The New Yorker titled "The Old Man and the Gun", which was later collected in Grann's 2010 book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes. The film stars Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, Tika Sumpter, Tom Waits and Sissy Spacek. Redford, then 82 years old, announced his intent to retire from acting after completion of the film.

<i>Driven</i> (2018 film) 2018 film

Driven is a 2018 biographical comedy thriller film directed by Nick Hamm and written by Colin Bateman. The film stars Jason Sudeikis, Lee Pace, Judy Greer, Isabel Arraiza, Michael Cudlitz, Erin Moriarty, Iddo Goldberg, Tara Summers, Justin Bartha, and Corey Stoll. The film premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on September 8, 2018, and subsequently screened at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released in the United States on August 16, 2019, by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment Content Group and in the United Kingdom on November 8, 2019, by Vertigo Releasing.

References

  1. ↑ "The Company You Keep (2013)". The Wrap . Archived from the original on December 3, 2016. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "The Company You Keep" at Box office Mojo, accessed February 14, 2015
  3. ↑ Gordon served as a consultant on the film. See Olson, Mike. "Company Man: A Conversation with The Company You Keep Author Neil Gordon", The Credits, Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., April 9, 2013. For more on Gordon, see "Board of Directors: Neil Gordon", American Conference of Academic Deans, accessed September 23, 2013
  4. 1 2 McClintock, Pamela. "Sony Pictures Classics Nabs Robert Redford's Company You Keep", The Hollywood Reporter, August 24, 2012
  5. ↑ Goldberg, Matt. "Sony Pictures Classics Acquires Robert Redford’s The Company You Keep Before Venice Debut", Collider.com, August 24, 2012
  6. ↑ Monk, Katherine. "Redford crazy about Canada" Archived 2016-02-10 at the Wayback Machine , Leader-Post, September 11, 2012
  7. ↑ "The Company You Keep", Sony Pictures Classics press kit, accessed March 1, 2013
  8. 1 2 Rooney, David. "The Company You Keep: Venice Review", The Hollywood Reporter, September 6, 2012
  9. ↑ Means, Sean P. "'First trailer for Redford's 'comeback' movie, The Company You Keep", The Salt Lake Tribune, August 30, 2012
  10. ↑ Mitchell, Wendy. "Venice line-up unveiled with 50 world premieres...", ScreenDaily.com, July 26, 2012
  11. ↑ Vlessing, Etan. "Toronto 2012: Festival Director Piers Handling Expects Strong Film Market", The Hollywood Reporter, August 17, 2012
  12. ↑ Punter, Jennie. "Looper in the loop to open Toronto", Variety, July 24, 2012 (subscription required)
  13. ↑ Hopewell, John and Elsa Keslassy. "'City,' 'Dead' to Studiocanal", Variety, February 10, 2012
  14. ↑ "La regola del silenzio - The Company You Keep", My Movies, Italy, December 20, 2012 (in Italian)
  15. ↑ Dawtrey, Adam. "Voltage juices up international strategy", Variety, February 1, 2013
  16. ↑ "The Company You Keep (2013): Movie Preview" Archived 2013-06-11 at the Wayback Machine , Cinema Way, December 3, 2012
  17. ↑ "The Company You Keep", Weekend chart, Box Office Mojo, accessed August 15, 2013
  18. ↑ "Plot, Details & Awards: The Company You Keep (2013)", Moviefone.com, accessed April 16, 2014
  19. ↑ Felperin, Leslie. "Venice Int'l Film Festival: The Company You Keep", Variety, September 6, 2012
  20. ↑ "The Company You Keep (2013)", Rotten Tomatoes, accessed May 9, 2013
  21. ↑ Corliss, Mary. "Robert Redford's The Company You Keep: Old Radicals Die Hard", Time magazine, September 6, 2012
  22. ↑ Holmes, Linda. "TIFF '12: Robert Redford Is On the Run In The Company You Keep", Monkey See NPR blog, September 10, 2012
  23. ↑ Reed, Rex. "The Way the Wind Blows", The New York Observer, April 2, 2013
  24. ↑ Pegg, David. "Sky Broadband customers targeted for allegedly pirating Robert Redford film", The Guardian, July 15, 2015, accessed July 9, 2016
  25. ↑ "Great-grandmother accused of Robert Redford film piracy", BBC News, February 11, 2016
  26. ↑ IMDB - The Company You Keep - Awards
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.