Steve Pulaski
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.
itamarscomix
Swimming With Sharks is original and daring, but very uneven. I've always been a sucker for films about filmmaking and Hollywood and as such I was willing to let a lot slide, but it had a few too many ups and downs, starting out with a very problematic and ambiguous mix of comedy and tragedy; it then reaches its peak in the second half, when it turns more and more into a full drama; but then disappoints with the ending. And without that ending, it would have been a truly singular film. As it is, it's still an interesting one well worth a watch, if only for Kevin Spacey's performance in the second half, that turns from over-the-top ham to utter and nasty subtlety.
CountZero313
From Sunset Boulevard (1950) through to The Player (1992), the dark side of Hollywood has given up juicy material for filmmakers looking to bite the hand that feeds. Not that there is any secret to be revealed here - pretty much everything you need to know about the soulless, spirit-crushing side of movie-making is contained in Raymond Chnadler's 1945 essay "Writer's in Hollywood", which contains more horror than any of the celluloid parodies it has since inspired.Swimming with Sharks is the tale of innocent Guy (a freshly scrubbed Frank Whaley), whose monster boss is tinsel town king-maker Buddy Ackerman, a screaming, mood-shifting bully who dangles just enough opportunity before Guy to keep him on his leash. But payback is due, and comes in spades.It is all very dark and delicious, and Spacey gets to rip loose as the psycho boss, the joke being that it is his very lack of sanity and compassion that allows him to thrive in the business. Love interest is supplied by producer Dawn (Michelle Forbes), who allows Guy to stay grounded as he negotiates his way to the top. Dawn and Guy show us that even in Hollywood true love can conquer all - or can it? It is received wisdom that movies about movies don't travel very well. Swimming with Sharks is about delusion and corruption, and how much the human spirit can take. It just happens to be set in Hollywood, but Buddy Ackerman could be Gordon Gecko in a different market. Worth watching to see Spacey enjoying himself in a role where he gets to say pretty much whatever he likes, and does so with relish.
