Starring: Chris O’Donnell, Alfred Molina, Michael Keaton
Director: Mikael Salomon [Director’s Cut]
Studio: TNT/Sony Pictures Television
Video: 1.78:1 widescreen, 1080p HD (2 Discs)
Audio: PCM Uncompressed 5.1, English DD 5.1
Extras: Featurettes
Subtitles: English, French
Length: 286 minutes
Rating: ***1/2
The Company was a TNT Network mini-series that aired in mid-2007; the movie chronicles the origins of the CIA, and follows its evolution from the late thirties of Nazi Germany and the early days of the Cold War through the eighties and the advent of Glasnost. This director’s cut adds additional footage to an already extensive three-part epic; the resulting project clocks in at quite nearly five hours! I watched it over a four night period, and found it to be both exceptionally well done and a captivating and entertaining watch. The principal actors are superb, especially Michael Keaton, who plays a chain-smoking, orchid-obsessed CIA senior analyst who is convinced that a Soviet mole has infiltrated the ranks of “the company.” The mini-series was produced by Scott Free, the production company headed by both Tony and Ridley Scott, and their involvement in the project helps to lift it above the ordinary.
Chris O’Donnell plays Jack McAuliffe, a Yale graduate who is recruited straight out of college into the CIA, and he is more or less involved over the next five decades in many of the keystone moments of international espionage and intrigue. In addition to his early exposure to post-WWII spy antics, he’s a key player in the U.S. response to the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs fiasco, as well as more modern day Cold War shenanigans. Throughout this entire period, the search for the Russian mole within the CIA continues; a clever backstory follows one of the key Soviet contacts in the U.S., who not only knows the identity of the mole, but was also a classmate of McAuliffe’s at Yale! And throughout, Michael Keaton chain-smokes RJ Reynolds’ entire manufacturing output of tobacco in his tireless search for the Soviet mole.
The image quality of this Blu-ray disc is exceptional, with excellent contrast in the many dimly-lit scenes, and superb representation of color, despite the rather drab palette chosen for much of the Soviet-era settings. The uncompressed PCM audio track was also superb, and delivered the necessary “oomph” to not only the requisite bombs and explosions, but also the music score as well. My only real complaint comes from a poor use of make-up with the principal actors; they just don’t seem to age much over the fifty-or-so years that this sprawling epic covers. A colleague pointed this out to me, and it became painfully obvious as the mini-series progressed. Heck, Michael Keaton smoked at least a carton of cigarettes a day; he’d have surely been dead within the first thirty years! An enjoyable watch, and despite a few flaws, highly recommended.
— Tom Gibbs
