Bad Company (1995 film)

Last updated
Bad Company
Bad companyposter.jpg
Promotional poster
Directed by Damian Harris
Written by Ross Thomas
Produced by Jeffrey Chernov
Amedeo Ursini
Starring
Cinematography Jack N. Green
Edited byStuart H. Pappé
Music by Carter Burwell
Production
company
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release date
  • January 20, 1995 (1995-01-20)
Running time
108 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$3,674,841

Bad Company is a 1995 American neo-noir thriller film directed by Damian Harris and written by Ross Thomas.

Contents

The film stars Ellen Barkin and Laurence Fishburne as former CIA operatives engaging in a dubious romance while plotting to murder their boss, played by Frank Langella, and take over his firm, which specializes in blackmail and corporate espionage.

Plot

In Seattle, former CIA agent Nelson Crowe is hired by Vic Grimes for a position with his company nicknamed "The Toolshed." Grimes' firm employs people with intelligence service backgrounds to sell their talents with regard to extortion and corporate espionage to domestic and foreign corporations. Grimes' second in command, Margaret Wells, begins working with Crowe and seduces him, enticing him with a plot to murder Grimes so they can take over the firm.

The Toolshed's top client, Curl Industries, is being sued in a class action lawsuit in a case currently on appeal at the Washington State Supreme Court. Curl Industries is accused of poisoning the water supply to a small town, resulting in the birth of disabled children. Grimes gives Crowe $1 million to bribe one of the justices, Justin Beach, into swinging the verdict in favor of Curl Industries.

Crowe and Toolshed operative Todd Stapp buy Justice Beach's $25,000 gambling debt from bookmaker Bobby Birdsong and pay for information on Beach's personal life from his friend, Les Goodwin. During a secret progress report meeting, Crowe is revealed to in fact be a mole for the CIA, albeit against his will. Crowe was dismissed from the agency on suspicion of stealing a $50,000 bribe meant for an Iraqi colonel.

Crowe's former boss, William "Smitty" Smithfield, is threatening prison time or the disappearance of the bribe as leverage to get Crowe to infiltrate the Toolshed. The CIA intends to acquire the firm and use it as a black operations hub with Smitty in charge. During the meeting, as he turns over the $1 million bribe money for inspection, Crowe secretly records his conversation with Smitty, who also forces him to sign a receipt. Stapp later discovers Crowe's secret objective and extorts a payoff from Smitty to remain silent about it.

Beach accepts the $1 million bribe delivered by Crowe. He and his mistress Julie Ames sign a receipt to ensure Beach's cooperation. Beach buys tickets for a flight to the Caribbean and sends Julie ahead with the money, telling her he intends to leave his wife and join her. After reneging on his agreement and voting against Curl Industries, Beach commits suicide.

Despite the setback caused by Beach's death and his vote, Wells and Crowe continue with their plan to murder Grimes. Wells spends a romantic weekend with Grimes at his fishing cabin. Crowe sneaks in and shoots Grimes, then beats Wells to make it appear like the murder was a robbery gone wrong.

Wells and Crowe then take over the Toolshed, though Wells now rebuffs Crowe's affections towards her, having used him to get what she wanted. Upon hearing of her lover's death, Julie travels to Europe, sending Goodwin postcards telling him how she's enjoying spending the $1 million. Goodwin sells this information to Crowe, who takes it to Wells. Wells orders Crowe to find and kill Julie because of her knowledge of the bribe attempt. Smitty confronts Wells in her office at the Toolshed and informs her of the CIA's plan to take over and also of Crowe's involvement in the agency's infiltration.

Julie buys a gun from Goodwin and goes to Crowe's apartment to kill him in revenge for Beach's death. She arrives shortly after Wells, who also came to kill Crowe. In a chaotic shootout, Julie blindly fires at both as Crowe and Wells shoot each other dead.

Julie somehow remains unharmed. As she meticulously picks up her shell casings, she finds Crowe's briefcase containing incriminating evidence, including the tape of his conversations with Smitty and the receipt she and Beach signed. After burning the receipt, Julie mails the tape to the U.S. Attorney's office to expose the corrupt dealings of both the CIA and the Toolshed. She then leaves town for good, alone.

Cast

Critical reception

The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. As of December 30, 2010, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 27% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 11 reviews. [1] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale. [2]

Related Research Articles

<i>Vanilla Sky</i> 2001 film by Cameron Crowe

Vanilla Sky is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film directed, written, and co-produced by Cameron Crowe. It is an English-language remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes, which was written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil. The film stars Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee, and Kurt Russell. It follows a magazine publisher who begins to question reality after being disfigured in a car crash.

<i>Class Action</i> (film) 1991 film by Michael Apted

Class Action is a 1991 American legal drama film directed by Michael Apted. Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio star; Larry Fishburne, Colin Friels, Fred Dalton Thompson, and Donald Moffat are also featured. The film was entered into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.

<i>Bad Boys</i> (1995 film) 1995 action film directed by Michael Bay

Bad Boys is a 1995 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Michael Bay in his feature directorial debut, produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith as two Miami narcotics detectives Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey. The film received mixed reviews from critics, but was commercially successful and spawned two sequels: Bad Boys II (2003), Bad Boys for Life (2020). A currently untitled fourth film is set for a release in 2024.

<i>Runaway Jury</i> 2003 American legal thriller film by Gary Fleder

Runaway Jury is a 2003 American legal thriller film directed by Gary Fleder and starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz. An adaptation of John Grisham's 1996 novel The Runaway Jury, the film pits lawyer Wendell Rohr (Hoffman) against shady jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Hackman), who uses unlawful means to stack the jury with people sympathetic to the defense. Meanwhile, a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game begins when juror Nicholas Easter (Cusack) and his girlfriend Marlee (Weisz) appear to be able to sway the jury to deliver any verdict they want in a trial against a gun manufacturer. The film was released October 17, 2003.

<i>High Crimes</i> 2002 American psychological thriller film

High Crimes is a 2002 American legal thriller film directed by Carl Franklin and starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, reunited from the 1997 film Kiss the Girls. The plot follows the successful criminal defense lawyer whose husband is arrested and accused of being the source of a shooting that killed nine people in El Salvador in 1988. An investigation reveals her husband was then a member of the United States Marine Corps, operating under a different name. The stakes are high as her client faces up to a life sentence for murder. The screenplay by Yuri Zeltser and Grace Cary Bickley is based on Joseph Finder's 1998 novel of the same name.

<i>Hoodlum</i> (film) 1997 American film

Hoodlum is a 1997 American crime drama film that gives a fictionalized account of the gang war between the Italian/Jewish mafia alliance and the black gangsters of Harlem that took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The film concentrates on Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, Dutch Schultz, and Lucky Luciano.

<i>Just Cause</i> (film) 1995 film by Arne Glimcher

Just Cause is a 1995 American crime thriller film directed by Arne Glimcher and starring Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne. It is based on John Katzenbach's novel of the same name.

<i>Crime and Punishment in Suburbia</i> 2000 American film

Crime and Punishment in Suburbia is a 2000 American crime drama film directed by Rob Schmidt and starring Monica Keena, Vincent Kartheiser, Michael Ironside, Jeffrey Wright, James DeBello, and Ellen Barkin. The film is a contemporary fable loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1866 novel Crime and Punishment, and focuses on a high school student who plots to murder her stepfather after he brutally rapes her.

<i>Bad Company</i> (2002 film) 2002 film

Bad Company is a 2002 American action-comedy film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins. Based on the script for a cancelled sequel to Blue Streak, the film became somewhat famous for its connections to the September 11th terrorist attacks; amongst other things, it was the last major production to film inside the original World Trade Center. The film plot, written years before the attacks, involved a variety of Serbo-Balkan extremists planning a huge attack in New York City. The film's release date was moved out of its late 2001 spot and into a summer 2002 release, similar to several other films with terrorism or violent crime-related stories, including Collateral Damage.

<i>Man Trouble</i> 1992 film by Bob Rafelson

Man Trouble is a 1992 American romantic black comedy film starring Jack Nicholson and Ellen Barkin. It was directed by Bob Rafelson and written by Carole Eastman, who together had been responsible for 1970's Five Easy Pieces.

<i>Goodbye Charlie</i> 1964 film by Vincente Minnelli

Goodbye Charlie is a 1964 American comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Tony Curtis, Debbie Reynolds and Pat Boone. The film is about a callous womanizer who gets his just reward after a jealous husband kills him. It was adapted from George Axelrod's 1959 play Goodbye, Charlie. The play also provided the basis for the 1991 film Switch, with Ellen Barkin and Jimmy Smits.

<i>Five Fingers</i> (2006 film) 2006 American film

Five Fingers is a 2006 American drama-thriller film directed by Laurence Malkin, and written by Chad Thumann and Malkin. The film had ten producers, including actor Laurence Fishburne, who stars in it alongside Ryan Phillippe, Gina Torres, Touriya Haoud, Saïd Taghmaoui and Colm Meaney. Five Fingers was filmed in the Netherlands, Morocco, and Louisiana in 2004.

<i>Ill Name the Murderer</i> 1936 American film

I'll Name the Murderer is a 1936 American crime film produced by C.C. Burr for Puritan Pictures, directed by Raymond K. Johnson and starring Ralph Forbes, Marion Shilling and Malcolm McGregor. The story and screenplay was written by Phil Dunham with special dialogue by Edwin K. O'Brien, and the film was released January 27, 1936. This was Schilling's last film.

<i>Twelve</i> (2010 film) 2010 film

Twelve is a 2010 teen crime drama film directed by Joel Schumacher from a screenplay by Jordan Melamed, based on Nick McDonell's 2002 novel of the same name. The film follows a young drug dealer whose luxurious lifestyle falls apart after his cousin is murdered and his best friend is arrested for the crime. It stars Chace Crawford, Rory Culkin, Curtis Jackson, Emily Meade, and Emma Roberts.

<i>The Caller</i> (2008 film) 2008 American film

The Caller is a 2008 film by Richard Ledes. The film, which stars Frank Langella, Elliott Gould, and Laura Harring, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival where it won the Made in NY Narrative Award. The screenplay was co-authored with Alain Didier-Weill.

<i>Robot & Frank</i> 2012 film directed by Jake Schreier

Robot & Frank is a 2012 American science fiction comedy-drama film directed by Jake Schreier from a screenplay by Christopher Ford. The film stars Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, Peter Sarsgaard, James Marsden, and Liv Tyler.

<i>Standoff</i> (film) 2016 film

Standoff is a 2016 American thriller film starring Laurence Fishburne and Thomas Jane.

<i>Juliet, Naked</i> (film) 2018 American romantic comedy film

Juliet, Naked is a 2018 romantic comedy film directed by Jesse Peretz based on Nick Hornby's 2009 novel of the same name. It centers on the story of Annie and her unlikely romance with singer-songwriter Tucker Crowe, who is also the subject of her boyfriend's long-time music obsession. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2018.

<i>All the Old Knives</i> 2022 American thriller film

All the Old Knives is a 2022 American spy thriller film directed by Janus Metz Pedersen and written by Olen Steinhauer. It is based on Steinhauer's 2015 novel of the same name. The film stars Chris Pine, Thandiwe Newton, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Pryce and David Dawson.

Lou is a 2022 American crime thriller film directed by Anna Foerster. The film stars Allison Janney, Jurnee Smollett, Logan Marshall-Green, Ridley Asha Bateman, and Matt Craven.

References

  1. "Bad Company Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved December 30, 2010.
  2. "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.