The Company You Keep

Journalists can be such insufferable pricks sometimes. Or so thinks the former domestic terrorist trying to put his past behind him in the quite watchable The Company You Keep. Small-town newspaperman Shia LaBeouf's fuming with professional jealousy when a former Weather Underground activist is arrested in his own Albany backyard. Making amends to his editor, he starts investigating her past and soon unravels the identity of a successful lawyer and single father (Robert Redford, who also directs). Redford's as strong a screen presence as ever, here leading a heavyweight cast of veterans which includes everyone from Susan Sarandon to Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte, Richard Jenkins, Julie Christie and Sam Elliott. LaBeouf's dogged hunt for old documents offers a nice contrast to the slow manhunt of Redford continually evading the FBI. The Company You Keep shows that even when you wage a war of ideals, the cost can be very high. —Jacob Boon