jwbblog: More on "The Company"

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

More on "The Company"

Welcome back to the show.

So we sat down to watch the first two episodes of "The Company" on Monday and I find that, for reasons I won't delve into, our DVR has deleted the first episode. No problem, I think. Surely they'll repeat it several times during the following week so fans who missed the first showing can still catch up, right? This is a three week extravaganza, people are busy, DVRs sometimes screw up, etc. Alas, no. I check the TV listings, but no sign of episode 1. I then check "The Company" section of the TNT on-line forum and some spokesbot reveals that TNT is apparently run by a bunch of morons. The only encore presentation of any of the episodes is immediately following the first showing. The spokesbot reveals, as if she's doing us a favor, that the previously shown episodes are available in their entirety on TNT's website. Now, I know that You-tube is all the rage, but lets be serious: Watching a two-hour movie on your computer is about as pleasurable as getting waterboarded by Dick Cheney. This is madness.

Anyway, We finally broke down last night and watched episode two. As our readers know, I've read the book, and I found jumping right in like that less disorienting than I think Jenn did. My overall response is: Not bad, but a bit disapointing. I guess I was expecting better production values from a project that the Scott brothers were involved in. However, the scenes in Budapest--which we visited in 2004--were very cool. Chris O'Donnell is a bit bland considering he has far and away the most screen time. In contrast, Michael Keaton does a nice job making Angleton suitably smarmy--you're not supposed to like him but he's the ony one in the room making fucking sense. Also, I guess I can understand what he was aiming for, but Alfred Molina's loud, blustery Torriti doesn't really work for me. I'll no doubt have more to say about this later, but my provisional verdict is: Meh! (Is that how you spell that, Raphy?)