Don’t have ‘Company Man’ for dinner

The opening of “Company Man,” a farce written and directed by Peter Askin and Douglas McGrath, contains the statement, “based on some true events.” The problem with the film is that the true events, Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba and the Bay of Pigs invasion, are funnier than this film could ever hope to be.

“Company Man” obviously wants to be a movie in the vein of “Airplane” or “The Naked Gun.” However, Askin and McGrath aren’t able to mix subtle humor and outrageous gags in the manner of those two classics, and rather opt for silly, obvious jokes. Instead of snappy one-liners, “Company Man” gives us a misunderstanding involving the words “defect” and “defecate.” Hilarious. Other spices of humor include supposedly clever references to Roy Cohn and “compact discs,” and a painful discussion about a senator’s wife’s extensive body hair. The film is constantly middling between attempts at satire and attempts at gross-out humor and never succeeds at either.

McGrath (“The Insider”) is the star of the film, a naive grammarian named Allen Quimp. The movie opens with Quimp testifying to a Senate Committee regarding the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Much of the movie is told in flashback form. Quimp pretends to join the CIA in 1959 to appease his shrewish wife (an unappealing Sigourney Weaver). When he assists a Soviet ballet master (Ryan Phillippe of “Cruel Intentions” fame, sounding like the love child of Rocky and Bullwinkle’s Boris and Natasha) in defecting, the CIA suddenly takes an interest in Quimp‘s idiocy and ships him to Cuba. After meeting the chief of operations (an unbilled and unfunny Woody Allen), Quimp “tortures” a confession from fellow spy and mole Dennis Leary (“The Ref”) by correcting his grammar. Leary is not the only one tortured during this long, repetitive “who’s on first” knock-off.

The film gets slightly more interesting when Castro (Anthony LaPaglia, “Sweet and Lowdown”) seizes power and an insane American guerrilla played by John Turturro (“The Big Lebowski”) enters the scene. Turturro’s character is just another stereotype, but he throws himself fully into his profane, given to personal mutilation maniac. Joining Turturro is Alan Cumming (“Circle of Friends”), playing an effeminate Batista. Cumming tries his best, but his character is one-dimensional and annoying. Weaver has also come down to Cuba by this point, to work on a novel based on her husband’s exploits. She, Allen, Turturro, Cumming and McGrath join forces to overthrow Castro and forced, wacky hijinks ensue.

Will an LSD-laced drink intended for Castro be drank by McGrath instead? Will the wrong people smoke Castro’s poisonous cigars? Will this necessitate a wacky musical number? Do you really need to spend eight dollars to find out?

“Company Man” is devoid of all but the cheapest laughs. A few cut scenes shown over the credits hint that it might have been something better (most notably a reference to George Bush’s relationship to the Yale society Skull and Bones), and so does the fact that McGrath and Askin sued Paramount over the final cut. However, what is presented, regardless of intention, is not worth your time. If you’ re looking to see a film about the Cuban Missile Crisis, try “Thirteen Days.” I haven’t seen it, but even though it’s billed as a drama, it’s probably funnier than “Company Man.”