Product Details

• Actors: Chris O'Donnell, Alfred Molina, Michael Keaton
• Directors: Mikael Salomon
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, French
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: October 23, 2007
• Run Time: 286 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000UEE6TC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,569 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Company" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description: The TV miniseries event of the year, The Company is an exciting new star-studded thriller from Tony and Ridley Scott. The Company depicts the history of the CIA, from the dawn of the Cold War to the demise of the Soviet Union.

Plot Synopsis: The Company tells the story of Jack McCauliffe (O’Donnell), an idealistic Yale graduate recruited into the CIA by his coach. He’s sent to the legendary Berlin Base in Germany to work with a man who becomes his mentor: the eccentric and colorful Harvey Torriti (Molina), codename "The Sorcerer". Jack and The Sorcerer are imprisoned in double lives, fighting an elusive but formidable enemy in an unrelenting and deadly battle within the CIA itself. Together with the counterintelligence chief, James Angleton (Keaton), the three men are hell-bent on finding the moles within their own ranks before every operation they undertake is completely undermined. However, Jack is forever changed as he must witness the cost in human lives.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not as good as the book, August 21, 2007

By 

Kirk McElhearn "Freelance writer and translator" (A town in the French Alps) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Company (DVD)

Robert Littell's The Company is a massive novel that follows the history of the CIA from post WWII to the end of the cold war. As long as three books, this novel is rich and full of characterization. So it's obvious that any such book would be hard to bring to the screen, large or small. The TNT TV version, at around 4 1/2 hours, tried hard, but didn't do justice to the book. It sometimes seems like an outline of the book, and so much is left out, that the action moves too quickly, changing locations and characters, making it hard to follow. This is more so in the early part of the series; the last 1/3 focuses on a more limited situation, the attempt to find a CIA mole.

Suffering from overbearing music that is way too loud in the early parts (which makes you wonder why the music was toned down so much in the last third), and characters who are supposed to age about thirty years, but look only a few years older, The Company is, nevertheless, good TV. It will keep your attention, and the intrigue is interesting, but be prepared to give it a chance; it's hard to follow at the beginning. The acting is good, the sets and locations interesting, and the plot - good vs evil - works well, especially since we already know who won the cold war.

But if you like this mini-series, do read the book - it is probably the best spy novel I've ever read, and is so much more interesting than this over-short TV version. No film could do it justice, but I can't help but think that a couple more hours could have saved this from its weaknesses.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhere in the middle., November 24, 2007

By 

F. S. L'hoir (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Company (DVD)

First of all, I actually enjoyed this mini-series, which, as has been noted, is elegantly produced and, on the whole, well acted. The costumes and settings are also excellent and evocative of the period. Michael Keaton is especially good in the role of chain-smoking James J. Angleton. And Tom Hollander, who seems to be making a career playing various Cambridge spies (He still has to play Maclean, Cairncross, and Blunt [which will require a real suspension of disbelief].), is brilliant (as usual) in the role of Philby (whom the writers have coyly called by one of his middle names, Adrian, so that viewers who may be only vaguely familiar with the early history of CIA will not guess he is Kim, the British Soviet Mole). Hollander plays the spy with understated charm, and his suggestion of Philby's stammer never slips into parody.

Good points being acknowledged, I now come to various aspects that have been already stated in other reviews: the overproduced music (which sometimes drowns out crucial dialogue); the handsome but rather wooden hero, who ages twenty years only in the steel color of his hair; and the confusing flashbacks, which cloud the narrative. As one who is fairly familiar with the historical background, I was also annoyed by details, which I admit are picky: if the heroes graduated in the Yale class of 1954 (as has been indicated), Philby, along with Burgess, had vacated Washington in 1951; by 1954, Burgess was in Moscow and Philby was being interrogated in London, cleared, and rehired by SIS and sent to Beirut under cover as a foreign correspondant, so there is no way that the young Yalies would have been in on the Philby debacle (One of them is depicted as delivering whisky and other goodies to him in Washington.). I think I prefer the "Good Shepherd's" solution of giving real people false names [We still knew that Matt Damon was Angleton!]. Then, none of these plot points would make the slightest bit of difference.

Again, I enjoyed the mini-series, which, under the aegis of Ridley Scott, sticks to standards that are much higher than the usual U.S. television fare. I did not think the series was as bad as some reviewers have judged it, but then, I think it could have been far better with a little more planning and a lot more editing.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best mini-series in a long time, August 23, 2007

By 

Jeffrey A. Cruz - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Company (DVD)

Years ago I gave up the spy novel for the crime novel, so I was hesitant to spend six hours in front of the tube to watch this miniseries. I was pleasantly suprised. Addicted, actually! Hyped for more! Great acting, photography and directing. Michael Keaton was AMAZING in his depiction of James Angleton.

Sign me up for the DVD.