User reviews

This is a VERY funny movie, that owes a great deal to Woody Allen. It's kind of like "Bananas", 30 years later and badly gone to seed. Who cares if the premise is absurd and the movie is episodic, there's some hilarious material here, and stars like Sigourney Weaver, Woody Allen, John Turturro and others are very funny. Sometimes it's a bit like a prolonged SNL skit, with the whole grammar teacher bit, but there is always another laugh around the corner. All this said, the film was a bit of a disappointment in retrospect, and does not live up to its potential. It's almost like they ran out of money and cut some corners while making it. It is also fairly short, and it appears that pieces of some scenes that may have been cut from the film are actually shown during the credits. Lightweight, yet nowhere near as bad as some reviewers are saying.

A waste of time, a waste of an excellent cast, and only because I saw a free preview, was it not a waste of money. Company Man began with a good premise, but nothing ever developed. The movie was a series of mostly unrelated comedy sketches centering around one joke - a "hero" who was so bland and boring that he was the perfect CIA agent. Characters popped in and out with no explanation, and the director appeared to be more interested in costuming than plot. I laughed through the first half hour and then. quite suddenly, the movie ceased to be amusing. Quite a number of the audience walked out midway through the movie, which is not a testament to quality, especially when we were attending a free preview.

In terms of the "quirky" feeling, intentionally haphazard plot, and amusing-yet-one-dimensional characters, I was reminded of some of Woody Allen's earlier work. And I love early Allen. In terms of the production value, the editing, and the strength of the direction, I was reminded of later Allen. I like later Allen, but it is not the pinnacle of filmmaking by any measure. Nevertheless, I fail to see how anyone would place Company Man on the lower end of scale. It is a very funny movie. It trips over itself at times, but there are some great ideas here, and I was pretty consistently laughing throughout. Perhaps people were turned off by the loose craft and high level of script/actor dependence--apart from the over-abundance of locations, this film might have worked better as a play--but I really enjoyed myself. 8/10.

Upon reading the description on the back of the video box, I immediately thought of the classic "The In-Laws" with Peter Faulk & Alan Arkin. Company Man turned out be more of an Austin Powers or Top Secret, instead.

Perhaps it was not a cinematic masterpiece. It was fun to watch, though, and gave me several really good belly laughs -- such as the "real" secret behind Gorbichev's alleged birthmark!

The plot is silly & "quirky," as some have noted, but it had a nice feel to it. Overall, I would call it a good little film.

I would just like to take the time to warn you all about this movie. This is a horrible movie. All this movie feels like is a waste of time. And actually a waste of some good actors. I mean, John Turturro is one of my all time favorites just like Denis Leary. But i don´t think anything can save this mess. This just simply isn´t funny.

The plot revolves around a teacher who lies about being an agent. And then when he helps a russian ice-skater to defect he is turned into a real agent and sent to Cuba. The plot is braindead to begin with, and it doesn´t get any better. The lead actor, Douglas McGrath, is horribly boring as the unwilling agent and i feel lucky if i never have to see him on-screen again.

All in all this is terrible. A real mess. And one of the few movies i strongly feel deserve the grade 1/10.

Seeing the credits Douglas McGrath has, I really wonder how he could produce (and write and direct and star in) such dreck. It's obviously a vanity project. He's called in friends from every movie he's done--Turturro from Quiz Show, Allen from Bullets, even Cummings from Emma. I have a feeling he's been doing his 'grammar teacher' routine since improv classes and I'm sure his friends found it hysterical. But someone should have had the guts to tell him it wasn't working here--at all. Irritating is funny for five minutes; then it gets, well, irritating!

I rented this because of the cast, and the plot sounded quirky and interesting. It was indeed quirky, but not interesting. There's a funny scene with Woody Allen near the beginning. But other performances, like Sigourney Weaver's, are bizarre and forced. Very disappointing and overall boring.

Comedy directed by Woody Allen which is a guarantee of a funny and absurd film and also in this case it does not contradict itself. A writer without a story to write becomes a spy and sent to Cuba to kill Castro. It will fail its task but in a spectacular way. Around him revolve other equally strange characters who form a traveling circus of spies who cannot speak and soldiers who cannot fight.

Did you know you could get a double agent to confess merely by spending the day correcting his grammar? Neither did I, until I saw this movie.

Douglas McGrath (who also co-wrote and co-directed) is Allen Quimp (yup, rhymes with "wimp"), a nerdy high-school grammar - and sometimes driver's ed - teacher in 1950's America. His over-achieving family think he's a loser and don't understand his all-consuming dream to rid the world of bad grammar. So, one day he tells his father-in-law a little white lie: he's really an agent with the CIA. Pretty soon the whole community knows, including a visiting Russian ballet star (Ryan Phillipe), who wants to defect- to Quimp! One thing leads to another, and the CIA ends up really recruiting Quimp and sending him to Cuba, where he roots out the double agent, becomes involved in several plots to assassinate (or at least humiliate) Castro, and becomes a DJ, playing songs that the CIA take as a coded request to invade the Bay of Pigs.

Never quite "sidesplittingly funny," as the back of the box boasts, but mildly amusing and watchable, with the "mongoose in my shorts" bit being probably the funniest scene in the movie; coming in at a close second is Alan Cumming's rendition of "Diamonds Are a Boy's Best Friend" (don't ask!).

Worth watching mainly for the performances. McGrath is likable as the clueless Quimp; Sigourney Weaver is perfect as Quimp's over-bearing and social-climbing wife. Alan Cumming doesn't seem to have much to do in his scenes, but makes the most of them, amusingly bringing to life his "I-can't-believe-this-guy-was-a-Cuban-dictator" character. John Turturro's character is easily the funniest - an agent who's gone a bit around-the-bend and become a raving lunatic bent on assassinating Fidel Castro- played by Anthony LaPaglia, who wins the "most unlikely casting" prize- which is not to say it wasn't a good choice! Amusing and likable, but never hilarious. This one goes somewhere in the grey area between C+ and B-. (Or two and a quarter stars out of four.)

"Company Man" conjures up a silly history lesson as it weaves a comedic story of the Castro Cuban coup vis-a-vis its central character (McGrath); an English teach turned CIA operative. A funny, surprisingly star-studded, and cleverly crafted little comedy romp with rampant nonsense, "CM" answers many questions such as where that thing on Gorbachev's head came from and why the Bay of Pigs invasion failed. Fun stuff for those into clever nonsense.

Ooooh man, I have seen some bad comedies in my life, but this is a true contender for being one of the worst.

What's most baffling though is that some of the greatest actors took part in it, like Sigourney Weaver, John Turturro and even Woody Allen. What the what???

Everything is off in this "comedy". It should become recommended viewing for filmstudents in order for them to analyse and learn HOW to s(8*w up a movie, with so much talent available.

I blame the director firstmost. Second I blame the casting department. Because WHY did the casting department put A star actors in supporting roles, while total nimwits are the leading actors? What the what???

This "comedy" is soooo bad, that it does become a (painfully) interesting DISASTER.

PLEASE dont tell anybody about this movie, let's try and keep it a secret, because with a bit of luck, everybody has forgotten about it...

In the 60's, Alan Quimp (Douglas McGrath) is a school teacher of English grammar and married with the very demanding woman Daisy Quimp (Sigourney Weaver). In order to avoid the constant mockery in Daisy's family, Alan says that he is a secret CIA agent. Daisy tells everybody, the CIA acknowledges the lie, but due to a coincidence, Alan has just helped and hidden the professional Russian dancer Petrov (Ryan Phillippe) who wanted to leave Russia. The CIA decides to hire Alan as an agent, to get the credits of bringing Petrov to USA, and immediately decides to send him to a very calm place, Cuba. Again due to a fortunate coincidence, Alan disclosures the identity of a double agent (Dennis Leary). Then, Fidel Castro (Anthony LaPaglia) makes the revolution and deposes Fulgêncio Batista (Alan Cumming). With the support of the former CIA agent in Cuba Lowther (Woody Allen) and Croker Johnson (John Turturro), Alan tries unsuccessfully to eliminate Fidel. In the end, he is sent to another quiet place (Vietnam). This movie is one of the most funny I have recently seen. The constellation of excellent actors and actresses is amazing. The story, a hilarious joke with the contemporary history of Cuba and USA, is delicious. Only the character of John Turturro disappoints a little bit, but when Woody Allen appears in scene, there are fantastic ironic dialogs. All the cast is excellent and wonderful, but Woody Allen is splendorous, as usual, with the best lines. I can not understand why this movie is so underrated in IMDB. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): `Um Agente Como A Gente' (`An Agent Like Us')

Obs: There is a joke in the Brazilian title that is not possible to explain to those not familiarized with Portuguese.

I thought that this was a very funny comedy. Performances were all good, especially Turturro's, but Weaver, Allen, and Leary also gave good performances. Many parts had me laughing pretty hard. Plot was pretty far-fetched, but that was what made it funny. Liked it enough to watch it twice, and would recommend it to others.

Score: 7/10

the movie seems to be based on a good plot but it is enriched with so much junk that the beauty of it disappears after 20 minutes. but much more important than that while i was watching this movie, i saw microphones hanging over from the scene. the first time i thought it was a mistake. but it couldn't be because there were fish poles all over the movie. so i thought that the director did it on purpose. the reason can be that this is a movie which holds lots of artificial stuff in it. so the director may have asked himself "how can i make it more artificial?" by fish poles.. after an hour of watching Company Man, the only reason i kept on watching in interest was because of these fish poles. Because it made me feel as if i was in the crew directing the whole thing. but hey maybe that was what the director was trying to do anyway. a 5 out of 10!

"Company Man" is a clever farce that deserves to be seen by more people. Though Douglas McGrath, its writer and star, is not well known, it has several famous actors, such as Sigourney Weaver and Woody Allen, playing major roles. This film is a revisionist look at the Bay of Pigs fiasco, much in the way "Dick" looks at Watergate. If you can suspend your disbelief a bit, and you're ready to have fun, you'll enjoy this comedy. Mucho laughs!

Higher if you like comedy loosely based on fact. If you don't like this type movie don't bother.

(Rating 8)See good actors acting outside their expected roles (e.g., Sigourney Weaver and Denis Leary.)

(Rating 10)See Woody Allen play Woody Allen at his uncredited best.

Re: Woody Allen ... He probably requested that he be left out of credits as viewers would expect better of him and the movie.

(Rating 2)Re: Trivia...Sorry they left Bill Murray on the cutting room floor.

(ad 1 to overall rating)Sorry they didn't spice it up with another "matronly housekeeper" scene.

(Rating 1)And, of course, the video clips in the credits leave no doubt as to the political persuasion of the writers/directors.

Set in the 1960s, this little-known independent film was in limited release so that the majority of movie fans have probably never heard of it. DOUGLAS McGRATH is a CIA man who recounts tales of his misadventures to a couple of senators. The cast is sprinkled with some famous names: SIGOURNEY WEAVER, RYAN PHILLIPPE and JOHN TURTURRO among them, with a brief glimpse of WOODY ALLEN.

All of the plot involves the attempt at overthrowing Fidel Castro during the period of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. All of the cast gets into the farcical nature of their roles, but none better than ALAN CUMMING as Gen. Batista, wackily funny in a role that has him ending up playing piano in a Florida nightclub singing "Diamonds Are A Boy's Best Friend." He makes the most of lines such as: "My great passion was the piano. Mamacita told me I must have something to fall back on, so I became a dictator." Sigourney Weaver has her share of memorable punch lines too and plays the role of McGrath's social climbing wife without ever becoming a caricature. She's obviously more skillful at farce than Ryan Phillippe as Petrov, the Russian dancer, who assumes a heavy accent but doesn't seem to know he's in a comedy. ANTHONY LaPAGLIA is effective as Fidel Castro and, in a smaller role, TUCK MILLIGAN does a nice job of impersonating President Kennedy.

It's clever stuff and there's plenty to chuckle at, but I never found it downright hilarious as some others have commented.

While I found John Turturro's performance a bit excessive as the maniacal anti-Castro activist, he seems to be relishing the chance at a comical role that requires a lot of energy to play. Only trouble is it seems a bit forced at times.

Summing up: Wacky light-weight farce is funny enough in places, but there's nothing memorable here. And what's with WOODY ALLEN in an uncredited supporting role? As usual, he plays his nerdy self.

This movie seemed really boring at first, but after about 15 mins I got it and it takes off with a loud clear resounding laugh! I was pleased to see that I was laughing at something that was actually funny for a change... in lieu of the "im so hip i chuckle at nothing because its snl" (so-called) humor. (snl hasn't been funny for 20 of the last 25 years.)

The cast is perfect in acting in the style of a 50's movie. The ones that stood out to me are:

Douglas McGrath .... Alan Quimp = brilliant brilliant delivery

Sigourney Weaver .... Daisy Quimp = she can play a real witch :)

John Torturro .... Crocker Johnson = psycho-soldier extrodinaire

Anthony LaPaglia .... Fidel Castro = warm cuddly version

See this movie if you want to be reminded that humor isn't necessarily vulgar, but just plain funny! 9/10

• Zafoid

"Company Man" is a 2000 film starring Douglas McGrath (who co-wrote and co-directed), Sigourney Weaver, John Turturro, Woody Allen, Ryan Phillipe, Anthony LaPaglia, and Alan Cumming - a terrific cast of wonderful talent.

McGrath plays Alan Quimp, a 1960s high school teacher obsessed with correct grammar. His in-laws dismiss him as a moron, and as he's sitting in a steam room, his father-in-law screams at him to get a decent job. Alan tells him that he's with the CIA, but it's a secret. It doesn't stay one for long, thanks to his wife Daisy (Sigourney Weaver) who tells everyone. She even tells a visiting ballet dancer, Petrov (Phillippe) that her husband can help him, and while giving a driving lesson, Alan does just that, he helps Petrov defect.

No one in his family believes he's CIA until a CIA man comes to the house. Taking Alan aside, he informs him it's illegal to impersonate a CIA officer. Upon learning that he helped Petrov, the CIA decides to send him somewhere out of the way. They send him to Cuba, where Castro (Anthony LaPaglia) is trying to oust Batista (Cumming). The head of their group (Allen) wants to leave, but he has to find the mole they're pretty sure is in the group first.

Alan ferrets out the mole by driving him insane until he confesses just to get out. After that, he and a freedom fighter (Turturro) work on ways to assassinate Castro - LSD in the water, which Alan drinks, laced cigars (which a band smokes) and so on. Meanwhile, Daisy joins Alan and is all excited because she can write a book on Alan's dangerous operations.

Some of this movie is incredibly silly, but it's quite funny, with excellent performances. Outstanding was Anthony LaPaglia as Castro - the man should be where Robert de Niro is, he's always excellent. Alan Cumming is Batista and he's a riot. Sigourney Weaver does a wonderful job as the frantic Daisy. Woody Allen is a scream as the clueless head of the CIA operation in Cuba.

As funny as this film is, I would have loved to have seen this film in the hands of Woody Allen, though he's done this type of film before. I think under his direction, it would have been a tad better.

This is a real comedy, not a dumbed down one filled with vulgarity. I recommend it.

This movie, as underdistributed as it has been, should be picked up wherever you can find it.

All you need to enjoy this movie is an I.Q. and a sense of humor. If either of the aforementioned are lacking you will probably agree with the "Don't watch this movie" reviewer.

Woody Allen has some classic lines in this film.

ALSO, the plot is not MUCH sillier than the ACTUAL Bay of Pigs incident.

"Company Man" (2000) is a smart political spoof that's gently amusing throughout - perhaps too gently: it is missing a certain punch. Most actors, including writer-director-star Douglas McGrath, Denis Leary, and a still-sexy Sigourney Weaver, are pitch-perfect in their roles, but others and especially John Turturro and Alan Cumming, play too broadly. Woody Allen fans will savor his few moments (he is unbilled, even in the closing credits, probably as an in-joke with his "Bullets Over Broadway" co-writer McGrath), but they may get an urge to re-watch Woody's own, somewhat similar but much superior "Bananas" from 1971. **1/2 out of 4.

'Company Man' is absolutely old style. The jokes, the acting, even the story. Douglas McGrath is a cross between Bob Hope and Jack Lemmon, while Sigourney Weaver's acting is reminiscent of something from the 50's.

In fact, all the cast is absolutely magnificent and it consists of Paul Guilfoyle, John Torturro, Alan Cumming, Ryan Phillippe and the fabulous Anthony LaPaglia as Fidel Castro.

Of course, for once more, no one is able to appreciate this movie, probably because of the absence of toilet humor and stupidity. Classy humor is something that people don't care about any more, they want rudeness, shallowness and indecency.

So, we have 'Scary Movie' scoring more in imdb that a movie with Woody Allen in it. That's great! That's really great!

10/10

This movie is pretty funny if you don't want to think too much. Yes, the movie doesn't really have a consistent plot and is mainly divided up into different segments, but the movie is still hilarious, and Douglas McGrath does an excellent job as the geek who the government assigns to a dangerous mission. Oops, sorry. WHOM the government assigns to a dangerous mission.

Anyway, don't expect any underlying meaning or important plot points in this movie. Just expect to laugh.

In view of the fact that the CIA is being the fall guy for the Bush gang's insistence on invading Iraq, you'll find this depiction of the beaurocratic idiocies of 'the company' to be truthful AND funny. Woody Allan (why was he unbilled?) gives his all depicting the chief CIA agent in Cuba. While the Revolution goes on all around him, he denies that the people are dissatisfied.

Pee-Wee as Batista (Alan Cumming) is doubly hilarious, since we know of Pee Wee's interesting foibles. The sight of Woody Allen lighting his cigar on a burning pinata of Batista, while denying the Revolution exists, is double-up side-splitting. The bit about playing the American rock and roll songs on the radio as 'code' for the CIA wasn't far from what they actually do.

Maybe it's because I never heard of his movie, it surprised me so. Just wanted to see Dennis Leary in his pre-tough guy days. And that itself is worth the price of the movie, as he gets so frustrated by having his English corrected, he .......can't tell you.

This movie is a really wonderful example of movie-making at its' best when you have a bunch of professionals working together and given great lines. Making it in Puerto Rico was also a nice touch.

Douglas McGrath leads an all star cast in this film.

The film is set in the early 60's. McGrath plays Alan Quimp, a grammar school teacher who makes up that he is in the CIA so that his wife will stop hassling him about getting another job. He then ends up helping a Russian ballet dancer defect from the Soviet Union and then is sent to Cuba to find "Agent X" who the CIA have been looking for for over 2 years. The story goes on from there when Agent X is found.

This is a quirky, constant, light hearted film with some funny bits. I loved the fact that it has an all star cast. Woody Allen is very funny. Best to watch a second time to appreciate it more. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but I personally enjoyed it.

7/10.