Good overall movie, 2 minor blips...

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2010)

As you've more then likely seen in the movie's trailers, George Clooney plays a fairly established employee at a corporation that basically fires people from other companies for a living. He is very satisfied with his job and loves the air travel. However, when his boss (Jason Bateman) hires an up-and-coming employee just out of Cornell (Anna Kendrick), George Clooney's character's livelihood is threatened. Her revolutionizing idea of video conferencing to fire the employees instead of face-to-face via flying doesn't sit well at all with George Clooney's character. After a "ride-along" in which she travels with George Clooney's character to see how he does the firing she starts doing some firing on her own. She ultimately cracks when one lady tells her she plans on jumping off a bridge once she leaves their meeting upon hearing she's being fired. Clooney's character gives her a quick pep-talk and they continue firing people. ***BLIP #1: While in Detroit, the first person she's assigned to fire (57-year old man) leaves his adjacent conference room and when walking by the conference room Clooney and Kendrick fired him from there is a clearly visible pro-Union bumper sticker in the window. Obviously it was seen during the filming and chosen to be left in the final cut. My problem is: if the director doesn't like unions--that's his opinion--BUT, it has to be understood that unions protect their members from this exact thing happening (BEING FIRED). So, obviously, the company they were at was NOT a union company.*** After firing the round of people they were assigned to fire, Clooney's character is told via a phone call that the company is going through with the video-conferencing idea through their office headquarters in Omaha, NE. After a unsuccessful protest from Clooney's character, he gives in to the idea and Clooney's and Kendrick's characters both go to the airport to return to Omaha. At the airport, Kendrick's character flies to Omaha while Clooney's character flies to Milwaukee to attend his sister's wedding after picking up his female "friend" in Las Vegas to bring along as a "date" (this is a completely separate part of the movie). Clooney's character then flies to Las Vegas to present a motivational speech at a convention center, after saying a few words at the beginning of his speech he has second thoughts and leaves abruptly to fly to Chicago (where his female "friend" lives). She answers her front door and Clooney's character is surprised to learn she has a family of her own as he watches her kids running upstairs (after coming off as single during their previous encounters). ***BLIP #2: Again a minor issue but still: WHY DOES VERA FARMIGA (Clooney's character's female "friend") USE HER BIG MOVIE ROLES TO BASICALLY SHOW HOW MUCH OF A WHORE SHE CAN BE AS AN ACTRESS??? OK, just wanted to put that out there, if you don't get what I'm talking about then go watch The Departed--you'll soon get it.*** After the awkwardly silent 15-20 seconds standing at her door the husband questions her for who the person is knocking, she says nobody... just someone who's lost and proceeds to close the door. Clooney's character flies back to Omaha and while traveling receives a call from his former female "friend" questioning why he decided to show up unexpected at her front door and chiding him for risking her "real life" in the process. He then questions her for not being honest and up front with him about her status (obviously not single), she replies by asking what exactly he wants... he doesn't answer... they both hang up. After returning to Omaha, his boss (Jason Bateman) informs him the employee that was fired by Kendrick's character (the one that told them both she was going to jump off a bridge) did in fact jump off the bridge. Upon learning this, Kendrick's character quit and went home to San Francisco, CA. Clooney's character denied any knowledge of the employee's intentions while she was being fired after being questioned by his boss. The movie then cuts to Kendrick's character being interviewed back in San Francisco and the interview concludes with a letter being mentioned that the interviewer shouldn't hesitate in hiring Kendrick's character. The letter was written by Clooney's character in order to help Kendrick's character due to how she took the harsh news of the employee she fired eventually following through with her intended suicide. Finally, Clooney's character makes his way to the Departure/Arrival screens at an airport and the movie ends with him staring at the screens and his voice is heard explaining how most husbands will be coming home after a day's work to their wife or girlfriend or kids or even dog meeting them at the front door while he will be high above the clouds with the light on his particular plane's wingtip shining a bit more then the rest of the stars in the sky. (I was waiting for the bat symbol to be seen in the clouds to complete the movie with a tongue-in-cheek low blow to Clooney's casting in the Batman movie from the late 90's.) In the end, the movie was good... but Vera Farmiga's casting as the tramp type is getting old, almost as bad as Michael Cera's soft-spoken and predictable character--that's bad class to be in.