A revolting comedy

>> Fidel and Woody don't mix in Company Man

by MATTHEW HAYS

One can't help but think of Woody Allen's Cold War farce Don't Drink the Water (the '94 made-for-TV version, not the original) as one watches the new film Company Man. There are over-the-top characters dealing with clandestine agents and national rivalries, silly misunderstandings, all bolstered by stellar casts.

But the folks behind Company Man might not want the two films held up for comparison. Where Allen's Water--in which he and Julie Kavner starred as a couple holed up in an American embassy after an international incident in an Eastern European country--was hilarious and on-target, Company Man feels flat, humourless, belaboured and generally lame.

Douglas McGrath stars (and also codirects and cowrites) as an uptight boob who somehow finds himself involved with the CIA. In Maxwell Smart style, McGrath is entirely inept and not up to the job. Sigourney Weaver is his ambitious wife, who sees the CIA gig as a primo way to social climb and get ahead. Soon, the two are in Cuba, where they become a key part of the Kennedy administration's mythical plot to assassinate Castro.

What follows may be the greatest number of wasted performances and predictable "comic" scenarios that have ever inhabited 80-odd minutes of celluloid. Watch us our agents try to drug Castro, only to have the glasses switched and end up intoxicated themselves! Witness the plot to make Castro go bald, which backfires and leaves Weaver without a head of hair! If my description of these scenes sounds banal, I'm dead on target.

Making matters worse is the laundry list of people involved, all acting as they would in a stage farce. At certain points, the cast--including John Turturro, Ryan Phillippe, Anthony LaPaglia (who plays Castro) and Alan Cumming--are a wonder to behold, simply because of their endless mulching of the scenery. When, I kept thinking, are they going to come up for air?

Most depressing is the unbilled appearance of Woody Allen himself, who can only heighten the unflattering comparison this film musters up. Company Man sputters along, a comedy flat out of steam in its first ten minutes. And just in case you're craving a Cold War comedy, Don't Drink the Water is available on video.

Company Man opens Friday, April 20