In the Company of Men (1997)

That's not "comedy-drama". That's a kind of movie like Little Murders (1971), Being There (1979), The Bothersome Man (2006). Mental Horror, indeed. You watch them, you giggle from time to time, but when the film is over you feel cold inside and wonder why there exist people like that, situations like that. Hell on Earth. Machiavellan, Mephistophelean creatures that ruin other people lives. Definitely not a comedy.The director-writer is great! i can't believe how did he manage to make such a movie for 25,000 dollars! Did the actors work for free? Did they get dividends on the movie gross? If so they did a great deal, because the movie got a lot of money, and it deserved it.With less than the money that Hollywood spent for photocopies when they did that crappy Tron-Legacy (2010) mister Labute did this masterpiece. I advice to watch this film to all the movie goers who are tired of Tron-Legacy-like stuff.With the budget of Tron-Legacy smart film-makers could do hundreds of intelligent movies like this. After all Following (1998) Nolan's debut film budget was 6,000 dollars, Clerks (1994) was made with 27,575$. "To acquire the funds for the film, Kevin Smith sold a large portion of his extensive comic book collection" (wikipedia)

I really thought both men were the bad guys because by looking at the movie poster, they are laughing with each other. It was pure bad luck that Howard got involved with Chad in trying to find a smart lonely woman and hurt her. At the same, he knew what that costed, he should've known better. Christine was right to have moved to another job and become a successful clerk. I honestly don't blame her, she was treated so poorly by the two men and that's what Chad wanted.You would really be wondering in the end if Howard was dragged out by the police in the bank because he had such lungs in trying to get through to Christine. I really hope so, shes better off without him and Chad. I also hope she meets someone better than them! The acting was brilliant, didn't understand the story line at first but when you continue watching it, it's really good. I give this 8/10

Almost every line and every scene in this tight, aggressive film is purposeful. Aaron Eckhart's performance as Chad is relaxed, controlled, and indifferently sadistic without being brutal. Matt Malloy's performance as Howard is absolutely necessary to the success of the film. The audience is never supposed to respect Howard, and Malloy commits unflinchingly to the role.Howard, in the end, discovers that he has been purposelessly led by his own weakness to want vindication for his ego--instead, he becomes a pathetic imitation of a romantic hero for a moral purpose he pretended to ignore.Some of the script suffers from believability. The beginning of the film, when Howard is slapped for asking a woman the time, is pretty unreasonable. If the film is (even an implicit) argument that women provoke men to be cruel, it proceeds from a false premise.The story boils down to the simple logic that Chad can manipulate and destroy Howard because Howard believes he's able to manipulate and destroy someone else.I envision Chad as a kind of false Satan--a man who pretends to be against God and morality solely for the purpose of seducing and destroying the lives of characters who believe in him."How does it feel to really hurt someone?"

In the Company of Men is a cruel and mean-spirited low budget film about a man playing playing a prank on an innocent deaf woman with the aid of a fellow co-worker, just for the sake of it. The movie's screenplay is very well-written. This is Aaron Eckharts first role of any relevance. He is chilling in his role which boils down to a sociopath, although one who blends into society extremely well. He cares about no one except himself and will hurt others for an easy laugh attempting to feed is own ego. Director and playwright Neil LaButes' first film. He would unfortunately go on to direct Nicholas Cage in the horrible Wicker Man remake.