Good and not so good.

Rating: 6/10 (22 December 2009)

How does one go about firing someone? What is the best way to get rid of a worker? These questions are the basis of this movie which highlights the precarious nature of our existence. George Clooney gives a strong and convincing performance as man who lives his life according to certain principles and when he abandons his own principles winds up paying the price. This movie is rather offbeat and in some ways reminds one of the kind of movies made by John Cassavetes, with his semi-documentary style that emphasized reality over conventional story telling. For this movie is based on a theme that we can all relate to, namely the unpredictability of life. Whether this movie succeeds as an entertainment piece is questionable, but as a social commentary, it does have merit.
There is a saying which goes something like this: know your limits. This movie completely ignores that maxim and the results are, not unexpectedly, a poorly crafted movie. While an attempt to explore the human condition is a commendable project, it may be asking a bit much for a Hollywood production company to do the job. Let's face it, Hollywood is good for churning out assembly line fluff but please, don't ask it to get into something as deep, serious and profoundly puzzling as the meaning of life itself. That is just being unrealistic, yet this movie, this Hollywood production, attempts just that, and not only does a poor job of it, but makes their effort even more embarrassing by trying to make light of the subject. You have a guy who basically lives in hotels and travels around the country doing corporate dirty work and we're supposed to expect that he has something serious to say? That he knows something that we don't already know? Yeah ... right. The theme of the rootless man was already treated in the movie Trains, Planes and Automobiles with far better results because whereas this movie is heavy handed and flat, at least John Candy and Steve Martin brought some comic relief to an otherwise droll topic. George Clooney is an excellent actor for certain roles but he's no John Candy so don't expect the laughs that Mr. Candy would have elicited playing the exact same role. His acting is wooden, his demeanor flat, his persona null. It has to be his worst performance. There was a time when Hollywood had the creative capability to produce credible cinematic works that explore various aspects of the human condition but those days are gone, a relic of history, replaced by glossy special effects extravaganzas and dominated by the stunt men who are now the real stars. Let Hollywood do what it's good at and leave it to others to create more substantive work. After all, it's only a movie.