Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

A TV miniseries in six parts about spying on both sides of the Cold War. Kids, the term "Cold War" refers to the rivalry and occasional proxy wars between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, now known as Russia. Between 1945 and 1990, both sides poured enormous amounts of money, effort, blood, and general discomfort into espionage nd counter-espionage. Our agency was the CIA and the USSR had the KGB. We finally won, partly by forcing the USSR to spend itself into oblivion. Both sides played pretty dirty. "We made a lot of mistakes along the way," muses the central CIA figure, Christ O'Donnell. "We won, didn't we?", replies his pragmatic colleague, Alfred Molina.I see no point in going into the forty-five year history of the Cold War, but I have to say that the film reminded me of Herman Wouk's massive works, "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." Somehow or other, O'Donnell finds himself in the middle of just about every important incident in which the CIA was involved, like the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Nothing about Chile and Allende because that was less of a mistake and more like a CIA-backed assassination.It's a reasonably good show. The production values are high and the historical details seem accurate enough for most purposes. Shooting locations included Ontario, Puerto Rico, and Budapest. The acting for the most part is professional, with standout performances by Michael Keaton, unusually subdued and convincing as a determined bulldog sniffing through mountains of data and hanging on to his conclusions, and by Rory Cochrane, who has the pudgy face of a comic and the deep growl of Russel Crowe. Both do fine work here.As in Wouk's works there are a couple of romances sprinkled through the story but it's far from a soap opera. Most of the time is spent on ferreting out double agents known as "moles" within the CIA, which is known as "the company." The Romanian actress Alexandra Maria Lara is cast as a ballerina who is O'Donnel's contact behind the Iron Curtain and becomes his main squeeze, despite firm instruction against it. She's attractive and an appealing character. Less appealing (as a character) is Natascha McElhone, whose big, bulging eyes and bony nose are beautiful in their own way.Chris O'Donnell as Jack McCauliffe, the sometimes doubtful protagonist, looks and acts more like a male model out of the pages of Gentleman's Quarterly or the New York Times Magazine. He's the weakest link in the story, more handsome and more bland than Kent Smith, and if it weren't for all the tension and mystery, he might easily have torpedoed it.And it IS a good story. The first two hours of exposition are a bit slow as we must be introduced to three Yalies who go their separate ways after graduation. Thereafter, the pace picks up. At times, the action we witness is particularly brutal. People get the crap beat out of them or are shot while begging for their lives. It's a dirty business all around. Yet, with all the intrigue and enigmas, the tale is never really confusing. It takes some concentration but we can follow the characters in their peregrinations.

Aleksander Grigoryevich Kopatzky, Angleton's Sasha or Igor Orlov was chased into the Soviet Embassy and emerged with a Wash DC retirement in his own downtown picture frame shop. Angleton found his Sasha, but a greater world of lesser men humiliated "Jim" as the movie additionally depicts showing the electro shock therapy being crudely deliver to Frank Weisner after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The Company is a Rembrandt painting of The Cold War era that accurately communicates the hard reality that bipolar world was trapped in. The movie could not say what I have said so directly and the real participants are melded and divided depending on what its history might betray or reveal. So forget about any truth you might witness and enjoy the experience. For the CIA participants it was all too real. Michael Keaton is as great an actor as Angleton was a man. Take some time to read Angleton's lying testimony to the Warren Commission: "Within the house of (espionage) are many rooms." "What I said to () after the Bay of Pigs was 'What is your fall back position if you fail?'" Reality what a concept! God Bless them all. and God Bless the United States of America.

I haven't read enough of Robert Littell's novels to know if he's the American version of Frederick Forsyth, Graham Greene, or my personal favorite, John le Carre, but I've liked the novels of his I've read, and one day, I hope someone makes a good adaptation of one of them. THE AMATEUR, filmed in 1981, was faithful to the plot of the novel for the most part, but was done in a plodding, mechanical style and further hampered by a one-note performance by John Savage in the lead role; only Christopher Plummer's wry turn as the head of the Czech Secret Service (he also poses as a professor) was worth watching. This made-for-TNT miniseries isn't as bad as THE AMATEUR, but it also falls short of the novel.Littell's novel was an epic roman a clef about the history of the CIA, with the usual blending of factual and fictional characters, and while it traveled well-worn territory (and not quite as substantial in that regard as le Carre's novels are), it's still an entertaining read. Obviously, when filming a long novel, even for a miniseries like this, some things have to go, but it's disappointing when great material is here, and the adapters (director Mikael Solomon and writer Ken Nolan) don't bring it to life on screen.Part of the problem is it seems like a greatest-hits version of the novel. You get the various incidents, like the Hungary uprising in 1956, and the Bay of Pigs, but there's no flow to the story. Solomon and Littell also cut out the humor of the novel - the character of Yevgeny, the Russian agent, for example, has a great fatalism about him (in the book, when asked what one of the principles of Marxism (I think) is, he replies, "A spy in hand is worth two in the bush?"), and Rory Cochrane could have played it as such, yet he does absolutely nothing with the part (he's certainly capable of it, so I'd like to think it's not his fault). Also a lot of the subplots are given to the character of Jack MacAuliffe, and Chris O'Donnell simply isn't equipped to handle them all. Speaking of O'Donnell, another problem is while the scope of the story is for 40 years, none of the characters really age, with the possible exception of Alfred Molina (as Harvey, code-named "The Sorcerer") and Michael Keaton (as real-life deputy director of counter-intelligence James Angleton). O'Donnell just looks like O'Donnell with a gray wig. The only actors who make much of an impression are Molina and Keaton. Overall, "The Company", while not terrible, definitely could have been a lot better.

This is a wonderful performance piece, for Cold-War, Tom Clancy/John Le Carré lovers alike. Spying was a dangerous, heart-breaking and lonely game, and the principle characters on both sides gave up much in the way of personal life - this slowly tumbles out as the story unfolds over 4 decades.I credit the Director with NOT revealing too much the first time you view it - I found myself wondering at certain points if the Script contained gaps -- not so. An example is the involvement of the notorious Kim Philby, a clever KGB double-agent. Everyone who has read 'Man Called Intrepid' knows who Philby is - if he breezed into this story as KIM PHILBY, we'd know what to expect. Cleverly, the character is not identified until the story is well-under way. By that time, you are as fooled as was his friend, the famous CIA counterespionage guru, James Angleton, played here with craft by Michael Keaton.Other performers shine, and the action scenes for Hungary, and the Bay of Pigs are startling. Part 3 packed a real punch as, again, we get treated to what the counterintelligence fellas had to go through to nail suspected double-agents.The second time through, I connected all the dots--so, the mini-series DVD has been well worth the investment. (Glad I missed it on TV with commercials).