In Good Company

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about In Good Company's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of In Good Company completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 30 April 05.

Overall comments and recommendations

In Good Company is a comedy/drama that exposes the greed and ruthlessness of corporate America . While there is nothing particularly violent or scary in this movie, children would probably find it boring; however, its perceptive humour would appeal to adolescents and adults.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie In Good Company contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) is Vice President of Sales for Sports America, a sports magazine, where he's been working since he left school. Sports America is taken over by GlobeCom and people start losing their jobs. Dan's job is taken over by a much younger man, Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) and Dan is moved to a smaller office. Carter has an agenda to cut $300,000 from the sales team's salaries and to increase advertising by 20 percent, a seemingly impossible task. Dan watches as his old workmates go, one by one, but Dan's job seems secure as Carter is attracted to Dan's daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson).

Alex is growing up, and much to Dan's dismay wants to move into the city to attend university. She and Carter start up a relationship, unbeknownst to Dan, as Carter's wife has recently left him. Carter is a likeable person as he seems naïve enough to believe in what he's doing, however his immediate superior Mark, is not a nice person who spends his time trying to impress Teddy Kaye, head of GlobeCom.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a little violence in this movie:

• Carter crashes his new car as he is driving out of the showrooms and breaks his arm.
• Dan punches Carter.

Material that may scare children

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

None of the scenes in this movie would be scary for children of any age.

Product placement

The following products were displayed or used in this movie:

• Pepsi.

Sexual references

There are several sexual references:

• At the start of the movie Dan finds a pregnancy testing kit and assumes it belongs to his daughter Alex. In fact his wife is pregnant.
• Carter asks his wife if she has been sleeping with someone else. She says she was but she has now broken up with him.
• Alex says that there are rumours going round that she is a lesbian.
• Dan says in response to how to stay happily married: “When you're out of the foxhole keep your dick in your pants”.
• Dan asks Alex if she's sleeping with Carter.
• It is implied that Alex and Carter have sex.

Nudity and sexual activity

Dan exposes his buttocks at a party.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• drinking of alcohol at home, in a club and at a party.
• Dan tells his daughter's boyfriend “If he ever gives her an alcoholic beverage or a joint he will hunt him down and neuter him”.
• At the university college there is a poster of marijuana
• Carter's father was a “druggie”.
• Dan asks Carter if he's switched to crack

Coarse language

There is quite a lot of coarse language, including:

• arse
• arsehole
• holy crap
• oh my God
• shit, bullshit, piece of shit
• fart
• frigging
• God dammit
• one use of the word fucking.

The movie's message

The movie's message is that people are important to a business and shouldn't be treated in a thoughtless manner.

Parents could discuss with their children what their own family's values are, and what the real life consequences can be of some actions and attitudes such as casual sexual relations and ruthlessness.