The Company You Keep **½ ( R) Robert Redford suffers from a relatively mild case of Ego Excess Disorder, compared to other luminaries who direct and star in the same film. Barbra Streisand and Kevin Costner have much worse cases of the syndrome, which makes those films too long, too preachy or otherwise cloying, typically with cameras focused on the boss longer than the story requires. In Streisand’s case, backlighting and other visual enhancements are elements of the diagnosis (e.g. The Prince of Tides). The worst part about this artistic disease is that the patient seemingly thrives, while inflicting pain and suffering on everyone else. Non-attendance is the only known treatment.
But this case is barely clinical, and well short of pathological, making it still worth of consideration. Redford and Susan Sarandon play former members of the 1960s radical group the Weather Underground, who’ve been leading normal middle class lives under assumed identities for 30 years, while hiding from the FBI for protests that included bombings and a bank robbery, with one fatality. Sarandon suddenly decides to turn herself in. That threatens the cover of Redford and a few others. He goes on the lam in search of his old girlfriend, leaving his daughter with his brother. Is he trying to escape prosecution, or to clear his name? The suspenseful chase is on.
The excitement level needed for thrillers is diluted by too much talk, and too many picturesque moments of quiet reflection. The script is rather sympathetic to those who opposed the war in Vietnam and demonstrated for civil rights with tactics that sadly included some damage to persons and property. There are factual underpinnings for the screenplay, loosely cobbled from a number of incidents and participants.
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Despite its descent into melodrama in the last 30-45 minutes, the film does provoke comparisons between resistance movements of the ‘60s and those of recent origin. Is there a common thread of governmental corruption and excess at the expense of its citizens? Are we getting the truth about today’s crises and hot-button issues any more than we were forty years ago? What is the role of civil disobedience in a free society? The film spurs such vital questions. The answers are left to the viewers. (4/26/13)