Film Reviews

In Good Company

• Rating:
• Director: Paul Weitz.
• Starring: Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, Scarlett Johansson, Marg Helgenberger, David Paymer, Clark Gregg, Philip Baker Hall.
• Details: US/ 109 mins / (12A)

Surprisingly effective for a movie based on such an outlandish premise, In Good Company stars Dennis Quaid as Dan, an old fashioned advertising executive at Sports America magazine. As sales start to fall, a sharp young kid Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) is brought in to revolutionise the department, essentially becoming Dan's boss in the process. If that wasn't enough for the old campaigner to deal with, Duryea soon gets involved in a relationship with Dan's daughter (Scarlett Johansson). With About A Boy and now In Good Company, Paul Weitz seems to be making a concentrated effort to cast off the more juvenile excesses of his early career (Exhibit A: American Pie, your honour). He still may have some way to go, but at least In Good Company is a couple of steps in the right direction, mirroring the throwaway charm of About A Boy. Even if he is occasionally guilty of the most perfunctory plotting - see the horribly overwrought finale - Weitz shows a talent for developing characters, especially the two male leads. An actor apparently only now coming into his prime, Quaid is superb here, his sturdiness acting as the perfect foil to the hyper-kinetic Grace. Oh, and there's more than a few laughs, too.

Review by Garreth Murphy