Most Overrated Film of 2009

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2010)

This was a good movie but I'm not sure why it's on top of all the movie critics top 5 lists. It seems to push all of the politically correct anti-business buttons in terms of heartless corporations mass firing downtrodden proletariats from their soul sucking jobs in the private sector while enlightening the movie viewer with the redemptive story of Ryan Bingham (Clooney) whose full time job is firing people while bedding down different women along the way. He is a "termination consultant" who is contracted by different companies to tell their employees they are fired. There are a number of scenes of him firing people with the predictable tears, violence, suicide threats, and so forth. You see, life in the private sector is really like this, day in and day out. Capitalism is exploitation, property is crime, we are all expendable components of an evil machine that ends up destroying us in the end. No wonder the left wing film critics love this movie.
Anyhow, Ryan falls in love with a fellow business traveler, Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) whose soul is even more shriveled than his own. Ryan also develops a relationship with a newbie to his "firing" company, named Natalie (Anna Kendrick) who eventually becomes disillusioned with firing people for a living. Go figure. Ryan becomes humbled by Natalie's humanity, not to mention his own experience of being used and discarded by Alex. Thus, we are lead to believe, Ryan becomes a better person for being on the receiving end of what he is usually dishing out. This aspect of it wasn't remotely believable.
A good movie, but for my money, the most overrated of the year.