The Company

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.

Tags: romantic

Review:
The movie is a montage of scenes of "reactive behavior" among realistic characters, and in this it is more like real life than a more structured story would have been.Of course there is some story structure here, involving the creation of a new dance.
"The Company" is a lovely commercial for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago (for New Yorkers this is in fact the same modern ballet company that used to be based at City Center but left the competitive dance fund raising environment here to have the stage to itself in Chicago).A labor of love for producer/story writer/star/former dancer Neve Campbell, she was determined to make the first film about a whole company, not just using the dance world for a backdrop of individual melodrama, and with long passages of actual performances.
But clearly she made compromises to get the film made that put his creativity as a director in a straight jacket and only lets his trademark talents fleetingly shine through.The key was getting the Joffrey's cooperation and I can only imagine the tough negotiations that resulted in this pretty much being a whitewash of the ballet world, or of any creative endeavor, in sharp contrast to the behind-the-scenes reality shows "Project Greenlight" on HBO or "The Fire Within" about Cirque du Soleil's "Varekai" that was on Bravo.
-- no views of the non-artistic administrators, board, or fund raisers (there's a passing exhortation to a flashy choreographer Robet Desrosiers to stay within the budget, but he gets the complicated costumes and sets he wants anyway);-- no homosexual relationships (there's a passing reference to the dancers AIDS has taken including "Bob", which cognoscenti have to know refers to the company's founder Robert Jeffrey, and Malcolm McDowall as the egotistical artistic director "Alberto Antonelli," a stand-in presumably for current company director Gerald Arpino, urges fellow Italian-American men not to make their boys, like he had to, "hide their ballet shoes");
-- no eating disorders (we do twice hear "Mr. A," half-jokingly, urge the company to eat salads and vegetables and there's one fast, quiet exchange in passing that I think was about diet pills);-- blame dancers' problems on dysfunctional parents and mentors, recalling that vivid song from "A Chorus Line" - "Everything was beautiful at the ballet" as dancers seek to escape messy situations through temporary perfect beauty.Altman does get to assert his artistic priorities in a few ways.
He effectively seizes on the ageism in dance, showing that it's not just the tyranny of aging bodies, as would affect any athlete, but that dancers with experience speak up for themselves and are more difficult to control in a viciously autocratic environment than ambitious, financially desperate, and, literally, pliable young dancers.It's also the first time I've seen a camera expose the swarm of acolyte assistants to the director, revealing them as ex-dancers whom "Mr. A" still dismissively calls "babies" and who resent the new stars even as they dance vicariously through them.The other beautiful Altman touch is when the significant character developments take place not center stage in a crowd but through a look or line happening way in the corner of the screen, like the expression on James Franco, as Cambell's chef beau, when she avoids introducing him to her family amidst a rush of congratulators.But visually and musically the Joffrey is a wonderful choice, as the choreographers represented range from Arpino to Alwin Nikolais to Laura Dean and MOMIX.
There is also a LOT of wonderful dance, and fascinating, very authentic, glimpses at preparation for, and creation of, real professional ballet performances.Anyone needing a continuous, linear, 'a, to b, to climax and neat ending' plot will not find that here.
It is absolutely the most honest, true-to-real-life movie (that I've seen, anyway) ever made about the life, work and culture of a professional ballet company (not that they are all alike, but there is much that is universal) and some of the people (friends, family, audience members, etc.) who interact with it at times.
(CENTER STAGE was mostly sickeningly ridiculous, as was its 2008 sequel, to an even greater degree) and the audition scenes in SAVE THE LAST DANCE were EMBARRASSINGLY bad--they even misspelled Juilliard--oy!)Always, audience members need to open themselves up, and try to experience a movie (or any piece of art/entertainment) on its own terms.
The film doesn't look nearly as good as some of Altman's others, but there are flashes of awesome beauty: a topless male dancer alone in a room with golden beams of light, and Neve Campbell in her bath.
I couldn't help but think of McDowell as an Altman self-criticism: an elderly director working with small budgets, prone to artiness, who champions art as being organic, who rounds up a large crew of performers and calls them "babies." The day-in-the-life shapelessness of the movie didn't at all bother me, though one character, who asks to stay in a dancer's apartment, is dropped pretty quickly.
Lets hope that Altman makes films for another 20 years and that he stays as adventuresome as he currently is.In 'The Long Goodbye' Altman invented a rather new camera stance, literally asking the actors to improvise staging and having the camera discovering them.It took a few decades for him to get back to such experiments with 'Gosford.' Now he takes it even further with perhaps the purest problem in film cinematography: how do you film dance?Forget that this features Campbell in a vanity role: she is good enough and doesn't detract.
Completely free from contamination of melodrama, the movie shows us, in a matter-of-fact manner, things behind the stage  dedication and sacrifices, lucky breaks that even the top talents sometimes need, experienced performers arguing anainst new ideas, injury and understudy stepping in at a moment's notice, disappointment from being fired, and much more.Doing what he does best, master Altman gives you an inconspicuous spot in the rehearsal hall, in the meeting room, back stage, to show you how an idea evolves right from an artist's concept to a successful performance  the road that is sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating and everything in between, the process that affects the lives of the people who are part of the whole.
And although personal story is not the point of this movie, the depiction of the relationship between the characters played by Neve Campbell (the dancer) and James Franco (the chef) is wonderful.
The icon of the movie, however, is artistic director of the company Alberto Antonelli , generally known as "Mr A", who comes off larger than life with the flare of Malcolm McDowell, who undoubted is remembered best from "A clockwork orange".To people who have experienced the joy of stage performance, even in a very modest way of an amateur choir or theatre group, there is the bonus of additional empathy  the sometimes not so smooth rehearsals, the panic as the performance approaches and nothing seems to work, the last minute jitters before curtain, the final jubilation when everything miraculously falls into place and the sincere applause of the audience.
Altman & Co. really ought to have chosen a piece that would have shown the Joffrey's more adventuresome side.I went into this film knowing that it was a "dance movie" with minimal storyline, and I was still disappointed.
I'm sure there is much time, dedication, and drama in the lives of ballet dancers who battle it out to be the one performer who gets to shine on stage during performances, but this movie does a real boring job at portraying it..
But in his films, like with this Chicago dancing company presented in his 2003 film The Company, the people doing the work need to know what they're doing, and that's the key to getting process, since dance, like film, combines many elements (in terms of dance there's physical movement, there's acting and performance, there's emotion, there's music and lighting, and so on).I imagine that's what drew Altman to the project (it was said it took some consideration before he accepted the job), that and perhaps a connection with the character Malcolm McDowell plays, Mr. Antonelli.
And how the stage is set, as we see, goes a long way for a fantastic dance set-piece, be it with thirty people in crazy costumes or a couple in very sensual poses.The Company has not much plot to speak of- then again, Altman would probably rather get a root canal than worry about a plot- except that it's about a dance/ballet company putting on performances throughout a season, with some minor drama here and there, a small romance between a superstar in the group played by Neve Campbell and a chef played by James Franco (tender scenes but played for real, much like those in Thieves Like Us).
We see the aftermath of this scene in a morning-after follow-up, but it's how Altman lets these actors be natural, find their space to look at one another or play pool, that is extraordinary.What The Company lacks in melodramatic tension or a real driving force towards something- the one criticism it could be given, though not a harsh one, is an almost disdain for any continuing conflict- is made up for in a principle need to express what it's like to create something, anything, on stage or on film, that's worth something.
(1) Among the many dance `numbers,' the one that stands out is the first, an outdoor performance featuring the Hollywood actress Neve Campbell (Scream 1,2, and 3, Wild Things), a trained dancer and the force behind the making of the whole film.
Altman's film has spectacular dance sequences at the beginning and the end but they're just staging, not great dance, and they're window dressing to cover up the emptiness of the whole production.If you love dance and/or Altman you'll doubtless have to see this picture, but you won't be watching a particularly memorable ballet movie or getting Altman even at his average level..
Under the direction of Robert Altman, The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago along with writer/producer and star Neve Campbell, bring vibrance and life to the screen.
Neve Campbell plays a gifted but conflicted company member on the verge of becoming a principal dancer at a fictional Chicago troupe," and, "James Franco co-stars as Campbell's boyfriend, a master chef who provides romance and refuge from the watchful eye of the pompous artistic director played by Malcolm McDowell." "The Company" is filled with nicely shot ballets, directed by Mr. Altman.
Stuff happens, sacrifices are shown, and people work hard; but, their lives are not very interesting, especially when compared to other stories about the ballet.***** The Company (9/8/03) Robert Altman ~ Neve Campbell, Malcolm McDowell, James Franco, Barbara Robertson.
Don't get me wrong...if you are a fan of ballet, and/or the Joffrey Company, the movie is worth a look for the beautiful dance numbers, especially the visually striking opening.
However, there was really no plot to the movie - it was, essentially a "day-in-the-life" of one season with the Joffrey Ballet, and while that was interesting to some degree, I expected much more from an Altman film..
I admit that there are good dance scenes, but this is a movie and naturally one expects some story/plot, at least some kind of reasonable conversation..
It has many elements of a conventional musical/dance film (e.g., 42nd STREET) -- the dancer who's injured the night of the performance, backstage romantic betrayals, and a passionate, driven director -- but nothing here happens quite the way we'd expect.
The betrayal takes place before the movie's narrative even begins; the passionate, driven director isn't a hard-drinking chain smoker (when we first see him, he's eating a salad); and the injured-dancer crisis is handled as a matter of routine -- twice -- with drama, but without melodramatics.Just like in jazz, where classic themes (such as "My Funny Valentine") can be endlessly updated and ever-interesting, so Altman plays upon variations of themes found in the musical/dance film.
He often says about directing, "How can I tell the performers what I want to see, when what I want to see is something I've never seen before."  To Altman, mistakes are more interesting than things that happen just as expected.I've noticed that there are a lot of people who missed this point in the film.
For one ballet piece, she's an understudy; yet then she dances in a star duet to "My Funny Valentine" (one of the most beautiful performances I've ever seen on film).
If you're a devoted fan of ballet or modern dance, you'll enjoy "The Company." Neve Campbell is Ry, a young ballerina and the focal point of the movie, which is an almost documentary-like portrayal of a professional ballet company preparing for and delivering spectacular dance performances in Chicago.
However, despite the casting of Malcolm McDowell as an authoritarian, acid-tongued company director to provide a potential source of dramatic conflict with Campbell's character, there's very little story or dialogue in the whole film.
Directed by the great Robert Altman, "The Company" focuses mostly on dance performances and grueling practices, with a few cliches thrown in (the dancers' struggles to win roles, please the choreographer and make ends meet financially).
So enjoy "The Company" on a quiet evening, glass of wine in hand, if you love to watch good dance performances, but not if you want dialogue or plot.
But the film is not called "The Dancer", so her character is little more a cog in the machinery of The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, where she is a featured dancer.Given that Robert Altman directs, we should not feel surprised that this drama has little of the usual dramatic story arc.
Malcolm McDowell plays the company's artistic director, Alberto Antonelli, and James Franco plays Loretta's boyfriend Josh.Although all the various plot lines are fictitious, Robert Altman directs very much in the style of a "fly on the wall" documentary.
Another thing I thought was wrong was the boring relationship between Neve and James, it wasn't interesting in the least.With the exception of the plot problems this movie is great, the score is fantastic, the acting is wonderful, Neve Campbell is stellar in a role that she obviously felt very passionate about, Malcolm McDowell does the whole high strung ballet boss to perfection, and Mr Franco is unnecessary but pretty enough to look at.If you're interested in ballet at all this movie is one to see because you really just observe how the company works in a kind of fly on the wall kind of way.
And more to the point, ballet.James Franco is cute as usual, and although his presence certainly doesn't go unnoticed, he as well as Campbell are mere puppets in the director's film, rather than making you actually feel like they're real characters.
A lot of people crowding the screen, incomprehensible dialog among the different parties we eavesdrop along the way, and magnificent dance numbers supplied by the Joffrey Ballet, that used to be based here in New York, but has moved to greener pastures and perhaps more funding in Chicago.The world of a ballet company comes to life thanks to Neve Campbell's interest in it.
But Robert Altman continues to please movie buffs with his real-life stories.The Company shows many different stories from the viewpoint of Ry, a ballet dancer with the Joffrey Ballet Company of Chicago, who is a rising star in the ballet scene.
There is lots of beautiful dance sequences with stunning choreography which show the pure beauty of ballet.Robert Altman said that he wanted this work to flow like a dance, instead of a formulated movie.
Although most of the dance is quite excellent (and I think the best thing about the film is the way the dance was filmed), overall, this was a bore.Normally, Altman's approach would be perfect for something like this, with a large ensemble cast, but in this case, there are no characters, and no story.
I think the intention of this movie was to show a couple of months in the life of a real life Ballet company, through the eyes of the lead (the surprisingly good Neve Campbell).
Robert Altman's Neve Campbell collaborated film "The Company" featured dazzling ballet excerpts that's almost like a promo for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago.
I was really let down by this one, not because I'm really into ballet (I'm not) or Robert Altman's films (I like him but he's not one of my favorites), but just because it could have been a really great movie, and instead it's just an ok one, punctuated by moments of stunning beauty.
But honestly, in a movie that is strictly about ballet, dancing is about all I want to happen.Unlike other soap opera like films that are merely set in the world of ballet, "The Company"'s plot actually revolves around the day to day life of The Joffrey Ballet.
Since the movie is intrinsically about dancing, it was disappointing to take anything away from it.All in all, "The Company" was an excellent film, a long awaited vignette into the world of ballet..
This attempt to look behind the scenes during part of a season for Chicago's Joffrey Ballet misses badly.The dance part of the film works so beautifully, you almost wish Altman and company had decided to just film a couple of Joffrey performances and be done with it.
Even for someone not interested in ballet, like me, this movie is very enjoyable, because you get to see the best parts form the performed shows, and get a great view inside the way things work there.But the problem is: there's virtually no story.
Neve Campbell stars (and wrote the story), and shows us her true passion andtalent for dance,  but doesn't allow the movie to be about her...it is simply about ballet.
I recommend this movie to anyone who loves dance, romance, quite but moving films, and music.I really hope there will be a The Company II!.
If you did, you'd understand that the ballet dancing in this movie was beautiful, and entitled a lot of hard work on the dancers' part.