In the Company of Men

Two young officials are sent from the head office to serve at another department for a few weeks. At work they are bypassed for promotion by a couple of yuppies. They are frustrated by their working conditions and their relations with women.
Both of them have been dumped by their girlfriends, and now they want revenge. They decide to search out a young woman, unused to being wooed, and shower her with flowers and attention, just so they can dump her later when their temporary positions come to an end. A beautiful, deaf secretary is chosen as their victim and ends up spending six weeks ''in the company of men'' ...
''Let's hurt somebody!'' This line was the starting point when Neil LaBute first sat down to write his screenplay. ''You can only kill a character once, but you can hurt him or her every day,'' he says in an interview.
”In the Company of Men”, has a five act structure and is a simple story along the lines of a modern ''boy meets girl - boy hurts girl - boy has fun doing it.'' The director coaxes the audience into thinking that Chad, who tricks both the girl and his companion, is at first a funny, charming guy, only to reveal later what a snake in the grass he really is.
Niel La Bute belongs to the young generation of independent film makers based in New York. This provides a creative environment, far from Hollywood's megaindustry, and strongly influenced by European film.
Geir Kamsvåg