{"id":4290,"date":"2024-10-05T03:39:09","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T03:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4290"},"modified":"2024-10-12T21:14:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:14:04","slug":"bad-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/05\/bad-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Bad Company <\/strong>(1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Touchstone\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong sexual content, graphic shootings, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Damian Harris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ross Thomas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Carter Burwell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jack N. Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 20, 1995 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ellen Barkin, Laurence Fishburne, Frank Langella, Michael Beach, Gia Carides, David Ogden Stiers, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Spalding Gray, James Hong, Michael Murphy, Tegan West.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $3.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I HATED Bad Company<\/strong> when it first came out. I could go into all the reasons I didn\u2019t like it- e.g. it was way too slow- but why waste valuable time and space? The point is I like it now. Why? Because now I get what director Damian Harris (Deceived) is going for with his thriller set in the world of corporate sabotage, espionage and other illicit activities. It\u2019s NOT a sexy potboiler along the lines of Basic Instinct or Sliver. In this world, sex is merely a tool used to gain something. It has characters who are always up to no good. They lie, deceive, blackmail, extort, plot, scheme, double-cross and kill. They never have good intentions. It\u2019s always about money, greed and power. There is nobody to root for. Everybody is equally rotten and corrupt. It\u2019s neo-noir. Now that I understand this, Bad Company<\/strong> is rather brilliant even if it is this side of trashy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Laurence Fishburne (What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It) plays Nelson Crowe, a disgraced ex-CIA operative who gets a job with the Grimes Organization (nicknamed \u201cThe Toolshed\u201d), an intelligence outfit in the private sector that specializes in the kinds of activities described above. Almost immediately, second-in-command Margaret Wells (Barkin, Sea of Love) is out to seduce him. Why? Because she wants his help murdering their boss Vic Grimes (Langella, Body of Evidence). While they plot their hostile takeover, their top client Walter Curl (Gray, Swimming to Cambodia) needs their help with a $25 million class action lawsuit brought against his company for poisoning a small town\u2019s water supply. The plan is to offer a $1 million bribe to a State Supreme Court judge (Stiers, M.A.S.H.) with a gambling addiction in exchange for voting in Curl\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t dream of revealing ANY of the plot\u2019s twists and turns. Just know that you can\u2019t trust anybody in Bad Company<\/strong>. You can\u2019t trust the words that come out of their mouths either. Same goes for their actions. Everything is a lie, double-cross or means to a wicked end. At times, it\u2019s hard keeping up with all that\u2019s going on. It\u2019s a little slow too. But at the same time, it\u2019s fun in a semi-trashy sort of way. For all of Harris\u2019 high aspirations, there\u2019s no getting around the ludicrous plot and shameless overacting.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In regard to the latter, the biggest offender is Gray whose loopy performance walks the line between comical and embarrassing. His character is a complete mental case. He\u2019s a germophobe prone to assuming a fetal position on the floor upon receiving bad news. It\u2019s weird and out of place yet it seems right at home in a movie that defies conventional categorization. Another memorable performance comes from Australian actress Gia Carides (Strictly Ballroom) as the judge\u2019s Southern belle mistress. I can\u2019t go into detail without spoilers so just take my word for it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There really isn\u2019t any heat between the two leads which I\u2019m sure is the point. If most of the acting in Bad Company<\/strong> seems formal and mannered, it\u2019s because the characters live their lives this way. Remember that it takes place within the intelligence community. These people are used to being guarded; it\u2019s second nature to them. They deceive as easily as they breathe. So it is that when Fishburne and Barkin have sex, it\u2019s cold and without passion. Barkin doesn\u2019t even take off her clothes. She radiates a different kind of sexuality than she did in The Big Easy and Sea of Love. Fishburne plays it cool, real cool, as Crowe. When he smiles, it\u2019s reptilian. It sends chills. You don\u2019t know exactly what he\u2019s thinking but it can\u2019t be good. Langella is also good as the agency head seemingly unaware of the plot against him. All he knows is that Margaret would rather f*** than fly fish.<\/p>\n

\u00a0No review of Bad Company<\/strong> would be complete without mention of the sleek production design. The interiors are as cold as the characters. Their personal spaces clearly define them. Look at Crowe\u2019s house, the only place to sit is an exercise machine. It tells us he\u2019s the kind of guy incapable of relaxing; he always has to be doing something. Although the action takes place in Seattle, the movie was mainly shot in Vancouver. Canadian cities always look so clean, a characteristic that enhances the movie much in the same way Canadian locations define the films of David Cronenberg.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Yes, Bad Company<\/strong> is trash, but it\u2019s the classy kind. It has a style all its own, one that not everybody will respond to. I get that. I didn\u2019t like the movie on my first viewing but subsequent viewings (at least 3) have made me a fan. I love the labyrinthine plot and varying acting styles. I love the dopey dialogue and the dead serious manner in which it\u2019s presented. My best advice is to approach with caution and watch with patience. It all pays off in the end. Trust me.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad Company (1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Touchstone\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong sexual content, graphic shootings, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Damian Harris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ross Thomas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Carter Burwell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jack N. Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 20, 1995 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ellen Barkin, Laurence Fishburne, Frank Langella, Michael Beach, Gia Carides, David Ogden Stiers, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Spalding Gray, James Hong, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Bad-Company-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4478,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions\/4478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}