The Company
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
The story revolves around a young man named Chandu (Chandrakant Nagre) (played by Vivek Oberoi) joining the world of crime in the Mumbai underworld to "make it big" someday. Gradually he learns the tricks of the trade and increases the gang's earnings and profits. This leads to his affinity with Malik (Ajay Devgan), the leader of the gang. The film features one cold-blooded murder scene in which Malik and Chandu kill Saeed and his brother Anis in the rear seat of the car on a chilling rainy day. Thereafter Malik goes on a bloody rampage killing all his opponents, to take the reins of underworld in his hands. In this stage, Malik says a prominent dialogue "Sab ganda hai par dhanda hai yeh" (It's all dirty, but it's business).
His rival gang leader and colleague under Aslam's umbrella Sharma, who was in a meeting with police inspector Rathod, is killed off. Inspector Rathod, who once tortured and abused Chandu in jail in early days, is killed at Malik's permission. However, both come at loggerheads during the execution of a contract killing. Chandu stops the deliberate vehicle crash and falls from Malik's favor. The contract was from a politician who tries to use Malik's gang to eliminate a front-runner, a contender for Home Minister's post. The assassination (a staged truck-car collision) takes place in spite of Chandu's emotional misdemeanor since Malik, not relying on Chandu anymore, gives direct orders. The rift between Chandu and Malik widens due to misunderstandings. The Commissioner of Police, Sreenivasan IPS (Mohanlal) uses the rift to bring the mafia under control. Chandu and Malik end up becoming bitter enemies. After Chandu's retaliation of the assassination of his lifelong friend of one of lieutenants Warsi, two factions of Mumbai's once most powerful gang 'Company' went to a full-scale war.
Malik and Chandu killed as many members of each opponent gangs as possible. Sreenivasan, as the police chief of murders due to the war, became criticized greatly. But he and his men knew this war ultimately is shortening the to-do list of his department. Big numbers of button men and lieutenants from the gangs were being killed. The war results in an intense chase sequence shot in Kenya where Malik hires hitmen to kill Chandu. Chandu survives, though he is injured severely. Sreenivasan convinces Chandu to come back to Mumbai and fight his war with Malik by helping the police bring the mafia under control.
In the climax, Chandu kills the politician (the mastermind of the contract killing) in prison. At the same time, one of Chandu's aides, Koda Singh, who swore revenge to kill who went against his friend Chandu, shoots Malik point blank to death in Hong Kong. Chandu and Malik came to a truce but Chandu never withdrew his order to Koda to kill Malik. It's not confirmed that whether Chandu has forgotten to withdraw his orders or deliberately kept that on. After the assassination, Sreenivasan notified Chandu and Chandu became tremendously shocked at this news. Koda Singh was arrested by suspicion by Hong Kong police on that day. The ends shows Chandu spending the rest of his life in prison after being persuaded by the Police Commissioner to surrender.

Review: Production values are pretty high for a television series - Ridley Scott's production presence no doubt helped on that front - and the post-war look and atmosphere of the Berlin sequences is particularly well realised.
"The Company," which refers to the CIA, stars Chris O'Donnell, Alfred Molina, Michael Keaton, Rory Cochrane, Alessandro Nivola, and Natascha McElhone, along with a huge international cast.The series purports to tell of some of the big events in which the CIA was involved throughout its history, woven in with the search for an elusive double agent, an American version of Kim Philby (who is also a character in the film, portrayed by Tom Hollander).
The period covered is 40 years, from the start of the Cold War to the fall of the Soviet Union and focuses on the experiences of three fictional Yale grads, class of '54: Jack McCauliffe (O'Donnell), Leo Kritzky (Alessandro Nivola), and Yevgeny Tsipin (Rory Cochrane).This is a very absorbing miniseries with some great, good, and blah acting, in my opinion.
For me the two great portrayals were those of Michael Keaton as James Angleton, the real-life chief of the CIA's counterintelligence unit, and Alessandro Nivola, who is an accomplished stage actor and gives a strong performance.Not surprisingly, this film came on the heels of the feature "The Good Shepherd," also about the CIA and starring Matt Damon.
EVIL SOVIET UNION).Its a gripping spy drama for the masses and the same time for the history buffs.The performances are very good on the behalf of Alfred Molina,Chris ODonnel and Rory Cochrane.Alessandro Nivola seems a bit out of pace.The real treat comes from Michael Keaton who goes stainless in his role.The action sequences and special effects are some of the best quality and i rate it just after band of brothers in the series branch.The show has a plus for the moments where the language of certain nationals is respected(the Russians speak Russian ,the Hungarians speak the Hungarian and the mobsters are so Sicilians).The big budget of the series is put to good use and the places you see in the movies are the ones where the things actually happened.There are little flaws for an epic of such proportions.I sense no TV feel in the image,sets,performances etc.
Great Mini Series Finally Portraying A Part Of U.S. History That Is Rarely Used As A Basis For Film!!.
When was the last time a movie(series) revolved around such an event as The Bay Of Pigs??
Plus the series doesn't just focus on one aspect of U.S. and world history, it focuses on the CIA's involvement in The Cold War from just after WWII, until the early 1990's, which entails a huge portion of 20th century history.
The Company involved so many important world events that it in my opinion, it far surpassed any other movie/series of its kind.
Rory Cochrane from CSI Miami, and Chris O'Donnell from the Batman* movies and the Bachelor are cast in very good roles.
Having only seen the first of the three episodes and watching the preview for the next two I see that the show will go on only to get better with the addition of even more actors and cameo's from some of my personal favorites the outlook is good.
However, this book (The Company) and the likewise named mini-series will probably be the best telling of the historical account in video format.
The main plot and character's names of this mini-series are on par with the facts that history reveals to us.
To anyone who is intimately familiar with the Cold War and the espionage struggles between the Soviet Union and the USA, you will find this mini-series extremely accurate.
If the Cold War and real spy stories are entertaining to you, then it's suggested that you view this mini-series.
This is definitely a recommended mini-series on the real spy games of the Cold War!.
Spying was a dangerous, heart-breaking and lonely game, and the principle characters on both sides gave up much in the way of personal life - this slowly tumbles out as the story unfolds over 4 decades.I credit the Director with NOT revealing too much the first time you view it - I found myself wondering at certain points if the Script contained gaps -- not so.
By that time, you are as fooled as was his friend, the famous CIA counterespionage guru, James Angleton, played here with craft by Michael Keaton.Other performers shine, and the action scenes for Hungary, and the Bay of Pigs are startling.
I am not knowledgeable enough to speak about the historical accuracy of the entire work; however, I know that it is based on historical fact.I'm totally fascinated by the history of the CIA; especially in the time period covered in this film.
I greatly admire the vast majority of the members of the CIA with whom I have read books, articles, and seen movies portraying their life.As far as the enjoyment level of this as a film, I am very pleased with the balance of history, information, substance, action, military footage, personal life info, etc.
Also this series gave us a look at some of the espionage machinations and seminal events shaping the Cold War.However it had numerous rather large flaws.
The film The Good Sheperd which covers some of the same ground as this series was far more effective in highlighting some of the shady ethical ground America covered in trying to win the Cold warSecondly I think the series was too ambitious in trying to deal with such an important and long period of history in such a small running time.
The Mini series should have been longer and this I think would have given us a more nuanced and detailed look at the time in historyit covered.
Finally I think Chris O'Donnell was a wrong choice to play the main character of the series.
He was just about adequate in the role but there are much better character actors who could have been brought in instead of a past his best film star( nothing personal Chris ) .
So in all a decent series , but if you want to learn about the cold war , your best bet remains a wide range of books from your local library or bookshop..
Chris O'Donnell, Michael Keaton, Alfred Molina and Alessandro Nivola all gave terrific performances.
Apparently he's written a number of cold war spy novels another of which was made into a movie, "The Amateur"..
I haven't read enough of Robert Littell's novels to know if he's the American version of Frederick Forsyth, Graham Greene, or my personal favorite, John le Carre, but I've liked the novels of his I've read, and one day, I hope someone makes a good adaptation of one of them.
This made-for-TNT miniseries isn't as bad as THE AMATEUR, but it also falls short of the novel.Littell's novel was an epic roman a clef about the history of the CIA, with the usual blending of factual and fictional characters, and while it traveled well-worn territory (and not quite as substantial in that regard as le Carre's novels are), it's still an entertaining read.
Obviously, when filming a long novel, even for a miniseries like this, some things have to go, but it's disappointing when great material is here, and the adapters (director Mikael Solomon and writer Ken Nolan) don't bring it to life on screen.Part of the problem is it seems like a greatest-hits version of the novel.
Solomon and Littell also cut out the humor of the novel - the character of Yevgeny, the Russian agent, for example, has a great fatalism about him (in the book, when asked what one of the principles of Marxism (I think) is, he replies, "A spy in hand is worth two in the bush?"), and Rory Cochrane could have played it as such, yet he does absolutely nothing with the part (he's certainly capable of it, so I'd like to think it's not his fault).
Speaking of O'Donnell, another problem is while the scope of the story is for 40 years, none of the characters really age, with the possible exception of Alfred Molina (as Harvey, code-named "The Sorcerer") and Michael Keaton (as real-life deputy director of counter-intelligence James Angleton).
This show does things with the history of the CIA that movies like the good shephard could only dream of.
Great story, wonderful acting this is one of the best mini-series i've seen.
The way the show is filmed to show the history of what we didn't get to see during the cold war is brilliant.
Everyone forgot also how great of actors Michael Keaton and Chris O'Donnell are.
They did a great job casting this series; every actor and actress gives a performance truthful to the character they are playing.
The locations and sets look really good.I bought this after watching the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries (which is vastly superior to the recent movie) and was hungry for more fiction about intelligence agencies.
I have read the book a couple of times, and have only just seen the series in the UK .
Though I never knew James Angleton, I've read plenty about him and Keaton absolutely nailed it.This little mini-series was OK.
This mini series is an accurate tool for introducing the Cold War to new students of history who have not live trough this period of time and it is also a great remembrance and respect for the struggle that is now a part of history, and all the lives lost during this period of time considered "peace- period" just after WWII and up to 1989...I also very much like films like "The Lives of Others" Stazi East-German documentary and drama film and Ted Turner 10-part series "Cold War" which is pure documentary ...Thanks for making such films!---[ this following part added NOV-2016 ]---A second look at "the Company" CIA mini-series made for television, I can sum it up as a Jewish production showcasing Jewish ladies, and how Jews controlled both sides of the "Cold War" game, trading information to their advantage at the expense of nationals everywhere, also the film could not find a proper Hungarian language speaking actor for the part of the 1956 uprising leader, it used an actor who did not even speak Hungarian what-so-ever and made the freedom fighter civilians look like in-humane UN-compromising murderers for wanting revenge against the AVH secret internal security communist police whose top political leaders were Jewish, then the film minimized the 1956 Hungarian uprising against soviet communism by the Suez Canal distraction that Hebrews engineered as an emergency measure to distract western audiences, ...
this is in line with David Duke's opinions on WWII in his Jewish Supremacism audio-book, just that this film brags this message covertly flying above the intelligence of the general audience >>> more over >>> as Jewish Supremacism and other sources (jewish encyclopedia) highlights Jews using secret societies (Freemasons) took over first Britain and then undermined every other "crown/monarchy" in Europe creating the French revolution and sending Marx-Engels-Lenin to Russia to create Bolshevik revolution (chaos) that undermined ANY economic-empire or technical competition from Russia so that Freemason England-America- France can have UN-molested world domination, Hebrews having successfully undermined and later crashed Soviets with Germans in WWII, >>> more over >>> the film makes no mention of Donivan's OSS which is where the CIA came from, it also makes no mention of the concurrent four-eyes (us-uk- Canada-Au) plus one (New-Zealand) also known as ECHLON total world wide signals intelligence collection and analysis program ongoing since before WWII but in place for the entire Cold War period and working overtime, recording/analyzing every single UN-encrypted voice conversation, the "ENIGMA" film of BlatchleyPark-UK of WWII is a good start where ECHLON took off from, and yes USA broke the Japanese code PURPLE and were fully aware of attack on Pearl Harbor, in fact Freemasons world wide needed USA in WWII ...((I can see why some of these ideas may be missed by general audiences everywhere)).
A Made-For-Cable Mini-Series that is a sprawling, stagy peek into the Espionage World of the Cold War. A Spy (CIA) vs Spy (KGB) bundle of nerves that went on for Decades and anyone intimately involved needed the "patience of a Saint" to endure.Many did last it out with failures and successes as the lines were constantly being blurred as to what was the right thing to do and what was not.
The Bay of Pigs and the Hungarian Revolution while providing the "Action" for the Series are the weakest parts and drag the thing down from what it does best and that is the up close and personal one on one matches and battles of Wits.Overall, worth a watch but it is an uneven Event that misfires as much as it doesn't and there is more Stagecraft than Trade Craft..
I watched all 3 parts in one sitting without being bored atall...for me, act 3 is the best and Michael Keaton is without a doubt the best actor in it.
I had a few problems with act 1's dialog, thinking it was kinda cheesy but all that was fixed after about 20 minutes...from then on it really makes you want to watch every spy movie you can get ur hands on...the book it was loosely based on is about as long as the Bible and my dad flew through it.
I can not recall many good movies to this topic: cold war, very complicated, interesting event in large.
Maps before changing the locations, captions for new characters, would be great (like in kill bill).Overall, love the movie.
If not for such great story telling, I would not have interest to dig just the history.Like all cool movies, this one is also fast paced.
I live at Budapest and as a Hungarian person the revolutionary segment of this movie was so more interesting for me and as i watched it, the film was well realising the political atmosphere.
Notable that the members of the secret police of the Nazis after the World War2 became the members of the ÁVH so that was a very cruel time of this country.The other part of the film was also very notable, the East-West Berlin zone, the episode of Cuba, and the long information war between CIA and KGB spies.
What I like especially about THE COMPANY is, that the three episodes are very well paced and that each reflects a different movie genre.The first episode is a romantic thriller in which the main character falls in love with a German ballet dancer that provides the CIA with information.
The woman actors were all fine and I had no problems with them.All in all I think that one would be better off reading the book as its power far eclipses this film..
The Company is a pretty decent mini-series about the CIA and the Cold War; I found it informative and well put together, even though a number of crucial CIA moments were absent.
More than anything, one is left with the impression that all little treasons and nonsense aside, there is some sort of idealization and nostalgia for the Cold War, when you knew who threatened you and why and why you had to fight ( even thought both CIA and KGB pictured themselves as the good guys and protectors of the common folk).
Molina's character near the end summarizes a view of the cold war that seems to be prevalent these days, that the side who screwed up less won and that the USSR looked pretty good on paper but was really flawed.If you consider that it's only been 17 years since the demise of the Soviet Union, this detachment is pretty impressive.
best film about cold war.
40 years of cold war have changed everything, CIA has played a dominant role in that great game.
The espionage in Berlin, Hungarian revolution, the bay of pigs,murder of Fideo Castro, all major historical events are shown by this film.
"We won, didn't we?", replies his pragmatic colleague, Alfred Molina.I see no point in going into the forty-five year history of the Cold War, but I have to say that the film reminded me of Herman Wouk's massive works, "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." Somehow or other, O'Donnell finds himself in the middle of just about every important incident in which the CIA was involved, like the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
Michael Keaton is as great an actor as Angleton was a man.
We are then led to believe that the CIA agent who took us through 40 years of the Cold War was so clueless and so empty-American that he finally did not know whether America or Russia were the good guys.
However, like other CIA/spy plots there is a main character who runs around all over the map, more or less trying to save the day, with a few other interesting characters thrown in.I wish I had read the book, but the interesting aspect to this plot was that it at least shows the spies as locals willing to sell information for money and/or a new life, not really heroic characters.
Once it was learned that the mole, Ken Philby, was Angleton's close friend they should have been gone, preferably with prejudice.Although the movie or series does not really go far enough into why nothing was done to change counter intelligence personnel when moles were not uncovered in a very short period of time, it does present the CIA, including Dulles as less than efficient protectors of liberty here in America or anywhere else.After viewing "The Company", it is less surprising that Robert Hannsen, the FBI Mole, was able to sell prime secrets for years, and even become the counter intelligence agent in charge of looking for himself (a mole).