Reviews by Matt

Some actors are bigger than the characters portray on screen. In some cases this is bad: Nicholas Cage has had a string of bad movies where the actor is more present than the character. Sometimes it is just funny; Christopher Walken has been playing himself for years now. Then there are the actors where it does not matter that you see him on screen, he still delivers an amazing performance. The actor in question is George Clooney.

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) works for a company that fires people. He flies all over the country and fires people at other companies. He spends most of the year in the air and has not really made many relationships, but he is happy with his lot in life. His closest relationship is with Alex (Vera Farmiga) a woman he meets in an airport bar. The two strike up an intense relationship revolving around syncing their schedules. After Natalie (Anna Kendrick,) a new hire at his office, comes up with a way to fire people via videoconference, Ryan is asked take her with him on his travels to give her some experience.

Clooney is amazing in just about everything he has done in the past few years, even if you cannot separate him from the character, and this is one of his best. This is most evident in the scenes where he is firing people. Ryan doesn’t just fire people, he offers them help for whatever comes afterwards. The following is a minor spoiler for the movie, so read on with caution or skip to the next paragraph. In one scene, he lets a man named Bob (J.K. Simmons) know that he is being let go. Bob is distraught and has no idea how to support his family with no job. Ryan mentions that on his resume, Bob put down that in college he minored in French Culinary Arts and that he bused tables at a French restaurant to put himself through school. He tells Bob that this is a chance to follow his dreams, and to do it for his kids.

The other star is Anna Kendrick. She shares some great scenes with Clooney and is able to be just as good as he is. Kendrick has gained fame for her part in the “Twilight” movies. She can do so much better than those movies and it shows here. Natalie is just out of school and is naïve when it comes to the real world. She comes in and has a great idea to save the company tons of money; firing via computer. She poses a threat to Ryan’s loner way of life and when she gets a dose of what he actually does it startles her. She is asked to fire someone via computer and she does it, but it takes a visible emotional toll.

One quick thing before I wrap this up. With the exception of two firing scenes, all the people fired were real people who had been laid off. The filmmakers placed ads in the paper saying they were doing a documentary on the recession. Those who showed up were told talk to the camera like it was the person who fired them and they could respond as they did, or say what they wished they had. This made those scenes very real. These are real people who went through one of the hardest things someone can face. It adds more to those scenes and is another reason why I love this movie as much as I do.

See this movie. The performances alone are worth it. It has won a bunch of awards already and is sure to get some Oscar nominations in Feburary. Look for another best actor nod for Clooney as well as best supporting actress nominations for Kendrick and Farmiga. Jason Reitman is sure to get a best director nomination to go along with a best picture nomination.

9 out of 10
Rated R for language and some sexual content.
109 min