A review of the 2012 film “The Company You Keep”
The Weather Underground was a radical left militant organisation active in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s. It was a revolutionary body that was responsible for a series of riots, bombings and jailbreaks. As a subject for a mainstream film, therefore, it is not obvious that this is a sympathetic proposition for American audiences and it is an essentially unknown topic for non-American viewers.
So it is something of an oddity that Robert Redford in his mid 70s should choose to produce and direct this work and take the lead role as a former Weatherman exposed many decades later by an ambitious local reporter. Another surprise is to see Julie Christie (in her early 70s) coming out of retirement to play a co-conspirator.
It is an amazing cast list which includes four Oscar winners – Redford and Christie plus Susan Sarandon and Chris Cooper – and five Oscar nominees – Anna Kendrick, Richard Jenkins, Nick Nolte, Terrence Howard, and Stanley Tucci. Add Shia LaBeouf, Sam Elliot and Brendan Gleeson and you have almost as many stars as the Milky Way.
So it is disappointing that the film, though workmanlike and watchable, is not more exciting. It probably worked better as the novel on which it is based.