In Sidney Lumet's 1988 film Running on Empty, Arthur and Annie Pope were part of a group of radicals in 1971 who bombed a laboratory making napalm for the Vietnam war. A janitor in the building was critically injured. Afterwards the Popes went underground with their two-year-old son. In the story, he's now 17, and his parents have eluded the FBI by changing identities and residences but now they are psychologically and emotionally drained. The screenplay by Naomi Fooner explores the complex ethical issues involved in letting their son go and possibly never seeing him again.
Robert Redford's film The Company You Keep also deals with an incident from the past that haunts a man who has assumed a false name and confounded the FBI for many years. As a former member of the Weatherman Underground, he claims to not have been involved in the murder of a bank guard during a Michigan robbery pulled off by his comrades 30 years ago.
Now working as a lawyer in Vermont, Jim Grant (Robert Redford) is raising his 11-year-old daughter Isabel (Jackie Evancho). She is still quite emotionally fragile after the death of her mother in an accident a year ago. When Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon), a former Weatherman Underground member, is arrested by the FBI, a young and ambitious reporter Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) gets an interview with her. The Vietnam War, she tells him, was not abstract to her and her colleagues; everybody knew someone who was going to war and the atrocities were on the television every night. She reveals some regret over mistakes they made but "we were right." Ben's editor Ray (Stanley Tucci) is pleased with the interview. Less impressed is FBI agent Cornelius (Terrence Howard), who is already trying to track down Jim Grant.
Convinced that he may be discovered after Sharon's arrest, Grant has decided to disappear. Leaving Isabel with his brother (Chris Cooper), he heads off to Michigan, Wisconsin, and eventually the West Coast in a last-ditch quest to clear his name.
Grant makes contact with two other members of the Weatherman Underground with hopes of finding Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie), his ex-lover who knows the truth about his involvement in the robbery. A lumberman (Nick Nolte) helps him get a car and gives him a good lead. A college professor (Richard Jenkins) is much less cordial but puts him in contact with the man Mimi's been living with (Sam Elliott). Meanwhile, Ben puts another piece of the puzzle together after contact in Michigan with Henry Osborne (Brendan Gleeson), the policeman who investigated the bank robbery. The reporter also meets with Osborne's attractive and intelligent adopted daughter Rebecca (Brit Marling) who has great respect for her father.
The Company You Keep is directed by Robert Redford based on a novel by Neil Gordon with a screenplay by Lem Dodds. Here is an old-fashioned drama with hardly any special effects but an intense focus on conscience, idealism, and integrity. As the protagonist tells the young and aggressive reporter:
"Secrets are dangerous things, Ben. We all think we want to know them. But if you've ever kept one yourself then you understand to do so is not just knowing something about someone else, it's discovering something about yourself."
In the thought provoking finale three of the main characters find out something important about themselves and the paths they should take into the future. It will get you thinking about where you have or would like to take a stand and, most important, what your motivation is for your actions.
Hats off to Robert Redford for putting together a prestigious all-star ensemble of 50+ actors with Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Brendan Gleeson, and Sam Elliott.
Special features on the DVD include: Behind the Scenes: the Movement, the Script, Preparation, and the Cast; On The Red Carpet; and The Company You Keep Press Conference.
