In Good Company

image for In Good Company

Short takes

Not recommended under 13s, PG to 15 (Lang. Sex. Themes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for In Good Company
  • a review of In Good Company completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 30 April 2005.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 13 Due to its themes, coarse language and sexual references this movie is not recommended for children under 13. In addition, most children under the age of 13 will find this movie boring.
Children aged 13-15 Parental guidance is recommended for adolescents aged between 13 and 15.
Children over the age of 15 Should be ok to see this movie with or without parental guidance.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: In Good Company
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mature themes, Medium level coarse language, Sexual references
Length: 109 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) is Vice President of Sales for Sports America, a sports magazine, where he’s been working since he left school. Sports America is taken over by GlobeCom and people start losing their jobs. Dan’s job is taken over by a much younger man, Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) and Dan is moved to a smaller office. Carter has an agenda to cut $300,000 from the sales team’s salaries and to increase advertising by 20 percent, a seemingly impossible task. Dan watches as his old workmates go, one by one, but Dan’s job seems secure as Carter is attracted to Dan’s daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson).

Alex is growing up, and much to Dan’s dismay wants to move into the city to attend university. She and Carter start up a relationship, unbeknownst to Dan, as Carter’s wife has recently left him. Carter is a likeable person as he seems naïve enough to believe in what he’s doing, however his immediate superior Mark, is not a nice person who spends his time trying to impress Teddy Kaye, head of GlobeCom.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a little violence in this movie:

  • Carter crashes his new car as he is driving out of the showrooms and breaks his arm.
  • Dan punches Carter.

 

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

None of the scenes in this movie are likely to be scary for children of any age.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

None of the scenes in this movie are likely to be scary for children of any age.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

None of the scenes in this movie are likely to be scary for children of any age.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

None of the scenes in this movie are likely to be scary for children of any age.

Product placement

The following products were displayed or used in this movie:

  • Pepsi

Sexual references

There are several sexual references:

  • At the start of the movie Dan finds a pregnancy testing kit and assumes it belongs to his daughter Alex. In fact his wife is pregnant.
  • Carter asks his wife if she has been sleeping with someone else. She says she was but she has now broken up with him.
  • Alex says that there are rumours going round that she is a lesbian.
  • Dan says in response to how to stay happily married: “When you’re out of the foxhole keep your dick in your pants”.
  • Dan asks Alex if she’s sleeping with Carter.
  • It is implied that Alex and Carter have sex.

 

Nudity and sexual activity

Dan exposes his buttocks at a party.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • drinking of alcohol at home, in a club and at a party.
  • Dan tells his daughter’s boyfriend “If he ever gives her an alcoholic beverage or a joint he will hunt him down and neuter him”.
  • At the university college there is a poster of marijuana.
  • Carter’s father was a “druggie”.
  • Dan asks Carter if he’s switched to crack.

 

Coarse language

There is quite a lot of coarse language, including:

  • arse
  • arsehole
  • holy crap
  • oh my God
  • shit, bullshit, piece of shit
  • fart
  • frigging
  • God dammit
  • one use of the word fucking

 

In a nutshell

The movie’s message is that people are important to a business and shouldn’t be treated in a thoughtless manner.

Parents could discuss with their children what their own family’s values are, and what the real life consequences can be of some actions and attitudes such as casual sexual relations and ruthlessness.