I don't think it's particularly memorable, but it's quite enjoyable while it plays

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2009)

George Clooney stars as a man who spends most of his life up in the air, flying throughout America. His profession: a man who fires people. Companies hire his company to send experts in to ease laid-off employees through their transition period. It's pretty loosely plotted, but the biggest events are his hooking up with fellow frequent flyer Vera Farmiga, with whom he builds a nice, no-strings-attached relationship that becomes about the only set thing in his life, and his training of young Anna Kendrick, a hotshot Cornell grad who hopes to revolutionize the industry by introducing teleconference firing. Clooney, of course, objects, partly because he thinks he should be there when he's terminating employees (the personal touch is needed), and partly because he hasn't reached the fabled 10 million mile mark. And he doesn't want to be home in Omaha. The film is basically an examination of a fleeting and lonely lifestyle. It actually manages to make it look kind of romantic, even with the loneliness (Hell, one can be just as lonely when they're stuck in one place). I think some of the later parts of the film, especially the whole sequence where Clooney attends his sister's wedding, a tad weaker than the flying bits. I don't think the film really has much of a coherent theme - the lay-off parts seem to me just a gimmick to set the film in the present, to give it a contemporary feel. The airport lifestyle remains the bulk of the film that is most memorable, and it's quite wonderful and sad in its way. It's also quite funny and charming. I don't think it's an especially memorable film, but it's a pretty darn good one.