Way before Kevin Spacey became a horrible boss, he was another real horrible ar..hole boss, where this movie really lets you ponder how far you can let someone push you. Hollywood producer exec, Buddy Ackerman (Spacey) who just revels in the role with flawless brilliance, lets out a string of verbal and physical assaults on a new fish employee, who Buddy has basically kissing his arse. Of course a lot of employees in the real world, who have been bullied, where the boss has made them their ashtray, will identify with this all too well, or painfully so, or to smaller degrees, than Spacey's handling of his employee, Guy, Pulp Fiction's Frank Whaley, suited up, and suited perfectly in this role, worlds away from that psychopathic nutter, in the first Vacancy film. The movie switches back and forth in slick fashion, which doesn't make it lose it intensity at all. Whaley has turned the tables on Spacey, making him his b.tch, holding him hostage in his own palisade house. What sparked this was Guy's new love involvement (Michelle Forbes) who Spacey refers loosely and dismissively to as "a little f..k towel". We continue to cut back and forth to Buddy's mistreatment of Guy, chronologically, until that final straw, and oh, how does he make Whaley suffer. In the end, unfortunately the victim is either of these two, and in that kind of hazy finale, we're left to figure out how it really went down, providing a slick thriller element, you wrack your brain for hours with, and this make does make pensive. I really enjoyed this movie, like I hadn't another one this much, for a while, which Adelaide Cinema's weren't granted a season run. But I recommend this to anyone, as it's another one that's slipped through the cracks, and that goes double if you're a Spacey fan, for you are to witness one of the most dramatically intense, searing, and powerhouse performances from a boss whose methods of intimidation are frightening. A master actor at work, where his two supporting co stars deliver solid. One engrossing film, from start to finish.

Kevin Spacey, more often than not, gets handed the sharpest, funniest, cleverest, most desirable monologues in his roles. In Glengarry Glen Ross, he delivered cold lines of fury when talking to his deadbeat employees and took some severe blows to the ego when he was jabbed with personal insults. In American Beauty, it was entrancing to hear him narrate his story with such gratitude and depth, along with giving us one of the best performances of the decade. And in K-PAX, he convincingly played an alleged extraterrestrial who seemed to appear out of thin air and turn a skeptical psychiatrist into a true believer. The man is a treasure often shorthanded and under-valued.Spacey gives yet another fantastic performance of true power and control in Swimming With Sharks, a black comedy that is heavy on the laughs and insight, and easy on the levels of conformity and monotony. This is a biting drama of business and progress in the work world, with some of the toughest and most brutal insight into the corporate world that can only be compared to the level of truths brought in Kevin Smith's Clerks and Mike Judge's Office Space. This deserves a spot in the same league.Guy (Frank Whaley) is a young writer who is extremely satisfied to get a job working as the assistant for movie mogul Buddy Ackerman, played by Kevin Spacey. Guy expects the job to be beneficial and insightful, until he sees Buddy's true side, which is loud, obnoxious, pretentious, smothering, overbearing, and just plain unforgiving behavior as he takes pride in being belligerent and disrespectful to his assistants. In an extremely well written scene involving Guy trying to reason with Buddy about his yelling and his uncontrollable tirades, Buddy browbeats him relentlessly by telling him, "my bathmat means more to me than you," at the same time throwing pencils at him saying, "these pencils more important, these pens more important." The key to this scene is that both men have extremely valid points; Guy is trying to speak on a human-level with Buddy and brings up the idea of how in a business relationship, one must have the skill and ability to hold a grown-up discussion with one another. On the other hand, Buddy remarks on how you need to be a man to do the job and you must accept the torment as a means to get somewhere in the world. Further commentary is provided when we open up and see Buddy as more than a cynic, but how he got to be one and whether or not guy is on the same track heading to the same inevitable destination.The film is intercut with scenes showing Guy breaking in to Buddy's home, taking him hostage by tying him to his chair, and preceding to torture him mercilessly, reminding him of all the times he was demanding and ruthless to him. Again, the scene is not supposed to inspire moments of shock and jolts as it is to prove to the audience that both these men have perfectly valid points. Are Guy's actions justifiable? Yes, but they're not particularly right. Are Buddy's reasons for being mean and ruthless to his assistants justified? Yes, but they're not particularly right either.Writer/director George Huang wrote the film based off of what he experienced as an executive assistant at Columbia Pictures. Whether or not the acts he was involved in were this extreme or are fabricated to fit film's high standard I can not say, but Huang clearly knows what aspiring young cinephiles (or just business man on the lowest step of the corporate ladder) must go through and put up with in order to make it big. Where Huang scores effortlessly is in the writing, which is sharp, brutal, and all around satisfying. Seeing these men spit out some of the foulest things imaginable is unbelievably satisfying and is not only played for laughs but for intelligence.While the moments of darkness and subversive violence that are spliced in with the moments of typical office conundrums and tribulations may be a bit abrupt, they are nonetheless faithful and necessary to the film's point. I've always seen film as a device used to depict either morals, ideas, ideologies, places usually left unexplored, utopias, etc, but I've too seen it has a brilliant way to showcase events, lifestyles, and modern quirks. Swimming With Sharks is a brutally well written piece brilliantly taking us into the life of an overworked and under-appreciated businessman who is just looking for respect and fair treatment.Starring: Kevin Spacey and Frank Whaley. Directed by: George Huang.

Ackerman obviously has problems or he wouldn't be acting quite in the way that he is, but director George Huang and Spacey are also careful to show that Ackerman has a lot more going on than surface behavior--he's acting the way that he is purposefully, both to get his due now as part of the establishment and to coyly manipulate his young, meek and abused underling, Guy (Frank Whaley), along with everyone else he comes into contact with. His aim is to mold Guy in a particular way--a way that works even though Guy thinks that he's severely breaking form in the extended penultimate scene that's intercut with Guy and Ackerman's history.Huang shows professional relationships as consisting mostly of politicking and manipulation. That's true at every level--certainly even Guy is doing this. There is very little authenticity to anyone in their working relationships. That seems pretty accurate to me, unfortunately. It's notable that the one dream of authenticity in the film--Guy talking about moving to Wyoming with Dawn (Michelle Forbes)--is treated and dispensed with as an unreachable fantasy, and it's also notable (and is fairly literally pointed out in the film) that Dawn, the one character who tries to demand being more authentic amidst the "shark infested waters" of the professional world, basically never gets anywhere.In the highly metaphorical ending of the film, things remain manipulative, political and backstabbing, and in that climate, at least two out of three characters "win". Huang seems to be suggesting that the professional world ain't likely to change any time soon, and that even if you try to change it or manipulate the game itself, you're likely to just get eaten up by it, processed by it and incorporated into it anyway. Again, I can't say I disagree with him.

I was so depressed after watching "The Men Who Stare At Goats" that I actively sought out Kevin Spacey movies to help redeem my perceptions of him. I saw "K-Pax" last week, which was adequately engaging, then found "Swimming with Sharks" on the IFC. What a find! This low-cost(less than $1M) film must not have had a very big marketing budget -- it completely escaped me at the time -- but it's one of the best performances Kevin Spacey I've ever seen. An abusive, self-indulgent, arrogant boss in the film industry, his role easily translates into that of a recognizable evil boss in any field. Spacey nicely runs the gamut of expression from god-like to humbled. His once-idealistic assistant is played by Frank Whaley, who never really saw his full potential subsequently develop in his career but has had nice turns in Pulp Fiction and a number of high-production TV series. Whaley too should be commended for his ability to grow the character from a wide-eyed beginning his dream job, to a vengeful warrior out for blood. The film centers on the dysfunctional relationship between these two and is weak only when it attempts to introduce minor roles featuring Michelle Forbes (Maryann on "True Blood") and Benecio del Toro (though these actors perform well with what they've been given).