Themes: Mind Games, Faltering Friendships, Battle of the Sexes
Main Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Matt Malloy, Stacy Edwards, Mark Rector, Emily Cline
Release Year: 1997
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Two frustrated young executives vent their pent-up rage via a childish prank and end up paying a price in this psychological black comedy, the feature-film debut of writer-director Neil LaBute. Former college buddies Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy) are in their early 30s and work in the same company. One day the two encounter each other in the men's executive washroom and begin expressing their mutual frustration regarding their lack of rapid advancement at work and their most recent bad luck with women. In hopes of gaining revenge against the fairer sex and bolstering their battered egos, the two hatch a nasty scheme to be enacted over an upcoming six-week-long business trip: Find a vulnerable young woman to court, slather with affection, and then callously dump. They choose a lovely, hearing-impaired typist named Christine (Stacey Edwards), a woman who hasn't dated in many years. Not realizing that she is about to be the metaphorical mouse between a pair of hungry cats, she laps up the sudden attention, but in no time it becomes apparent that Chad is the man she prefers. When Howard discovers this, it creates escalating tension between the two men who begin playing more psychological games, not only with hapless Christine, but also with each other. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review
Neil LaBute's disturbing and corrosively funny debut feature is pure dynamite as a character study and investigation of the mindset of the corporate male (or perhaps the male in general). As both writer and director, LaBute gives his leading characters enough detail to emerge as flesh-and-blood people rather than caricatures of Bad Men, and Aaron Eckhart and Matt Malloy make the most of their material as Chad and Howard, the yuppies who seek to win and then crush the affections of a hearing impaired co-worker. In this story, Chad and Howard's humanity doesn't redeem them; in fact, they seem all the more repulsive for it, especially Howard, initially the more benign member of the pair, whose fear and distrust of women becomes as ugly as Chad's more obvious misogyny. While Stacy Edwards isn't given as much to do, she makes Christine well-rounded enough to have her own complement of virtues and flaws. The starkly beautiful images evoke Edward Hopper's paintings of urban isolation, as they enhance the film's tone of clinical and sterile detachment. In the company of men of course carries a double meaning, as the movie indicts American corporate culture as much as (or more than) men as a gender. If you wanted to kick start a heated debate about gender issues at the end of the 20th century, one viewing of this movie gave you all the encouragement you needed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Mark Rector - John; Emily Cline - Suzanne; Jason Dixie - Intern
Credit
Joyce Pierpoline - Associate Producer, Denise Snider - First Assistant Director, Neil LaBute - Director, Joel Plotch - Editor, Matt Malloy - Executive Producer, Toby Gaff - Executive Producer, Mark Hart - Executive Producer, Lisa Bartels - Line Producer, Karel Roessingen - Songwriter, Ken Williams - Songwriter, Julia Henkel - Production Designer, Tony Hettinger - Cinematographer, Mark Archer - Producer, Stephen Pevner - Producer, George Moskal - Sound/Sound Designer, Tony Moskal - Sound/Sound Designer, Neil LaBute - Screenwriter
A commentary on modern misogyny and corporate culture, the film revolves around two male coworkers, Chad (Eckhart), and Howard (Malloy), who, angry and frustrated with women in general, plot to toy maliciously with the emotions of a deaf female subordinate.
Chad (Eckhart) and Howard (Malloy) are two middle management employees at a corporation, temporarily assigned to a branch office away from home for several weeks. Howard is assigned to head up the project. Embittered by bad experiences with women, they form a revenge scheme to find an insecure woman, romance her simultaneously, and then break up with her at the same time. Chad, who is cruel, manipulative, duplicitous, and abusive to his subordinates, is the originator and driving force behind the scheme, while Howard is the more passive of the two, which leads to a later conflict with the scheme. Chad decides upon Christine (Edwards), a deaf coworker who is so self-conscious that she wears headphones so people, thinking that she is listening to music, are compelled to get her attention visually or tactilely without immediately learning that she is deaf. Chad and Howard decide to each ask her out, and over the course of several weeks, date her simultaneously. In the meantime, things with the project go wrong; a fax Chad is supposed to have made to the home office is "lost" and a presentation Chad is supposed to deliver to the home office is unable to be carried out successfully after some documents are allegedly printed so lightly that they illegible. These mishaps culminate in Howard being demoted and Chad taking his place at the head of the project. Chad eventually sleeps with Chistine, and she falls in love with him. When Christine eventually breaks this news to Howard, Howard tells Christine the truth about their scheme, and tells her that he loves her. Christine is shocked by the revelation, and refuses to believe that Chad would do this. When she confronts Chad, Chad admits the truth. Christine angrily slaps Chad, but Chad is unashamed of his behavior, and cruelly taunts Christine, who collapses into tears after he leaves her. Weeks later, Howard confronts Chad back home at his apartment. Howard is now apparently in the bad graces of the company, being moved to a lower floor. While Chad is doing well, and thus offering to say something on Howard's behalf. Nevertheless, Howard is not worried about work, he confesses to Chad that he really loved Christine. At this point Chad, despite having previously told Howard that his girlfriend, Suzanne, had left him, shows Howard that she is still there, asleep in his bed. Chad says that he carried out the plan "because I could," and asks Howard how it feels to have truly hurt someone. Howard, who had never done anything like that before, leaves, horrified. Howard later travels back to the city and to a bank where he sees Christine, and tries to speak to her, but she ignores him. He loudly pleads with her to "listen" to him, but his pleas literally fall on deaf ears.
The DVD of the film contains two commentary tracks, one with director Neil LaBute, and the other with stars Aaron Eckhart, Matt Malloy and Stacy Edwards.
References
^ This is mentioned during the Actor Commentary on the DVD.
