The Company You Keep - 2 smiles

“The Company You Keep,” directed by and starring Robert Redford, would be a better movie if there weren’t so many instances that strain credibility. To start, at 76, Redford is at least a decade too old to play a former 1970s radical on the run from the FBI. And the daughter of a retired police chief (Brendan Gleeson), who investigated the original robbery, is much too young. And far from being a dedicated seeker of truth and justice, Shia LeBeouf’s reporter is a smug, arrogant manipulator who exploits his acquaintances to gain privileged information. He’s supposed to represent a bright young journalist, but LeBeouf plays him as an obnoxious unscrupulous troublemaker out for personal glory. Could that be a problem with direction or is that Redford’s opinion about journalists today? And the ending makes no sense given what’s transpired before it.

A former member of the Weather Underground wanted for a Michigan bank robbery, Redford’s Nick Sloan has for decades quietly lived under an assumed name and practiced law in upstate New York. Things start to unravel when a former comrade (Susan Sarandon) is arrested while en route to surrender for the bank robbery, which resulted in a guard’s death. Nick’s cover is blown by a young Albany reporter, Ben Shepard (LeBeouf), who pieces things together while repeatedly engaging in unethical and illogical behavior, including ignoring orders from his boss (Stanley Tucci) and flirting with an FBI agent (an underused Anna Kendrick), who eventually gets removed from the case. Nick constantly eludes an FBI dragnet (how believable is that?) supervised by Agent Cornellius (Terrence Howard), with the help of former radicals played by Nick Nolte and Richard Jenkens (excellent as always). Nick’s goal is to rendezvous with a former girlfriend (Julie Christie), who can testify that he was not part of the robbery. “The Company You Keep” has a stellar cast that give top-notch performances. Too bad the script has so many holes. 4/5/13