This is a master class by Michael Keaton. Though I never knew James Angleton, I've read plenty about him and Keaton absolutely nailed it.This little mini-series was OK. A bit unlikely with the love-interest parts and highly unlikely with the re-union scene in Austria. The CIA's involvements in certain major events are simply left out. I'm thinking East Asia, South America, running drugs etc, but hey, let's not get too uncomfortable.Was it worth watching? Yes. Would I watch it again? No. It's nowhere near the BBC's original Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, but worth it for Keaton's Angleton.

This is a brilliantly executed and really satisfying miniseries. They did a great job casting this series; every actor and actress gives a performance truthful to the character they are playing. The look of each time period was captured quite well. The locations and sets look really good.I bought this after watching the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries (which is vastly superior to the recent movie) and was hungry for more fiction about intelligence agencies. If you like spy stuff along the line of John le Carre then you will like this miniseries.If you like cold war history then you will like this miniseries. This miniseries takes you through pretty much the entire cold war. It was really enjoyable to watch a program about the things that had just been covered in my latest history class.It is a bit biased perhaps but don't let that bother you. After all, it is told from the perspective of CIA agents.I am very satisfied with my purchase and I am sure that I will watch this series again in the future.

After having read Robert Littell's masterpiece (can you believe that only 6 people have given their opinion on the book over at Amazon???) I was already set up with very low expectations for a film version. I have been more disappointed than satisfied with the film versions of good novels and this was just one more flop.The novel is very long (896 pages) but is as deep as it is wide from the point of view of a plot that grabs you from the outset and doesn't let you go until the very last page. The story he weaves is a believable pattern of interconnecting stories that are borrowed from real Cold War history and fictions crafted from the vapours of that real history. If you know your history well then Littel's craft shines; I mean, without that knowledge you would not be able to differentiate where the real and the imaginary part ways or merge.The film version, in my view, suffers from several weak points and I'll describe them. Much is made of Michael Keaton, one of my favourite American actors, known for his versatility in both dramas and comedy (see: Clean & Sober, Beetlejuice and Multiplicity). He gets the mannerisms and physical gestures of Angleton down pat. What works against him and I know that I am being very picky, are his looks. Keaton looks like what he is: a very healthy and squeaky clean guy. Angelton was a chain smoking and borderline alcoholic whose many decades of this lifestyle left him looking like a train wreck. Keaton looked too healthy. John Turturo would have been a better choice. Alfred Molina is a terrific and very physical actor but for me he drew too much attention and gave me the impression of over acting but without the inner turmoil that his character possessed. His role would have been better captured by a younger Gene Hackman or Charles Durning. Molina was not believable as the man depicted in the novel. Next is Chris O'Donnell, someone I have yet to like in any movie. I think he was completely miscast as Jack McCauliffe. His boyish good looks worked against him. His character would have done better with Jude Law or Colin Farrel.I found Rory Cochrane to be a delight, giving a finely honed and substantial performance. His responses were periodically obscure as if his attention had wandered and I think that the writers/director could have given his character more time....which the book certainly does. The woman actors were all fine and I had no problems with them.All in all I think that one would be better off reading the book as its power far eclipses this film.

The Company is a pretty decent mini-series about the CIA and the Cold War; I found it informative and well put together, even though a number of crucial CIA moments were absent. The cast was uniformly good, and even though no amount of make-up and prosthetics can make Chris o'Donnell look older than 22, I thought he was OK.Make no mistake, this is not John Le Carre stuff: it is not drenched in nihilism, pointlessness and failure, even though it does not seem to be James Bond Universe either. More than anything, one is left with the impression that all little treasons and nonsense aside, there is some sort of idealization and nostalgia for the Cold War, when you knew who threatened you and why and why you had to fight ( even thought both CIA and KGB pictured themselves as the good guys and protectors of the common folk). Molina's character near the end summarizes a view of the cold war that seems to be prevalent these days, that the side who screwed up less won and that the USSR looked pretty good on paper but was really flawed.If you consider that it's only been 17 years since the demise of the Soviet Union, this detachment is pretty impressive. But then it goes to show how different the world has become today.