Besides Band of Brothers, this is the best miniseries I've ever seen. When I picked this up at the video store I had no clue what it was about and wow was I impressed. I watched all 3 parts in one sitting without being bored atall...for me, act 3 is the best and Michael Keaton is without a doubt the best actor in it. Spanning decades and featuring twists I never saw coming I hope everyone picks this one up. Amazon is selling it for dirt cheap considering how great of a product this is so forget spending 6 bucks on the rental and just buy it, you will not be disappointed. I had a few problems with act 1's dialog, thinking it was kinda cheesy but all that was fixed after about 20 minutes...from then on it really makes you want to watch every spy movie you can get ur hands on...the book it was loosely based on is about as long as the Bible and my dad flew through it. This also makes a great Father's Day gift if ur dad likes anything from Bond to Godfather.

This show does things with the history of the CIA that movies like the good shephard could only dream of. Great story, wonderful acting this is one of the best mini-series i've seen. It is the spy show equivalent of what band of brothers was for war shows. The way the show is filmed to show the history of what we didn't get to see during the cold war is brilliant. Alfred Molina is one of the most underrated actors around. Everyone forgot also how great of actors Michael Keaton and Chris O'Donnell are. Their performances are great especially Keaton who plays the ever stubborn MOTHER very well. This to me is one of the great mini-series made right up there with band of brothers and generation kill. A must see.

"The Company" had an entertaining quality that leads you to believe you were getting inside information about the period covered. However, like other CIA/spy plots there is a main character who runs around all over the map, more or less trying to save the day, with a few other interesting characters thrown in.I wish I had read the book, but the interesting aspect to this plot was that it at least shows the spies as locals willing to sell information for money and/or a new life, not really heroic characters. However, I agree that the best aspect was Michael Keaton's portrayal of James "Jesus" Angleton as a strange person with incredible power and hold of the flow of information. He does not seem to be either worthy or trustworthy enough to hold such control over an out of control agency.Keaton's performance hints at the quirky and strange person Angleton was and made me wonder how this person could hold his position without much suspicion being place on him for all the moles who could not be found. The others were either too alcoholic or too much in denial to question Angleton and his highly questionable "friendships" in addition to the good chance of being thrown into a mental institution. Angleton's power was in knowing the dirt on everyone, and covering up his own dirt pile. Once it was learned that the mole, Ken Philby, was Angleton's close friend they should have been gone, preferably with prejudice.Although the movie or series does not really go far enough into why nothing was done to change counter intelligence personnel when moles were not uncovered in a very short period of time, it does present the CIA, including Dulles as less than efficient protectors of liberty here in America or anywhere else.After viewing "The Company", it is less surprising that Robert Hannsen, the FBI Mole, was able to sell prime secrets for years, and even become the counter intelligence agent in charge of looking for himself (a mole). The greatest problem with the CIA and similar intelligence agencies is that eventually the fox gets in charge of guarding the hen house or worse.Today, we had better learn these lessons of the past, and get members of other countries military & intelligence agencies, dual citizens, out of our government, or we will continue to self-destruct.

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.