Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Tcarts76 This is one of those movies where a great actor turns a run of the mill film into a good one. Kevin Spacey is just the sort of actor that always seems to do that."Swimming with Sharks," is the story of a young man, Guy ( Frank Whaley), who is determined to make his mark in the Movie industry. He lands a job as the assistant to big time Hollywood executive, Buddy Ackerman (Kevin Spacey), and thinks he has the start to launch him into the big time. It turns out that Buddy is not only a bigshot executive but also makes ridiculous demands, and is a downright cruel demanding boss, that seems to have no regard for his assistant or anyone for that matter. How far can Buddy push Guy until he snaps?This is not a new story line, it has been done time after time, but it is a horrible boss story, so everyone can relate to it. I am not a fan of Frank Whaley and actually can't stand him, but he does a decent job in this one. As I said this movie wasn't very original and I probably wouldn't have liked this movie at all if it wasn't for Kevin Spacey.Kevin Spacey did a great job portraying the evil, demanding boss.In my mind, he was what made this movie. Everything in this movie says boring and done before, but Kevin Spacey's performance turns it into a good movie. It's rare that one actor could do that by himself but in this case it is true.Not to reveal anything, but the end takes a twist that is actually a pretty good one. So overall, it was a good movie, not a great one. Spacey turns out to be the only one driving it, but somehow it was enough to make it watchable and at times enjoyable.Like my reviews, hate em? Any questions or comments, or if you want a DVD reviewed just shoot me an e-mail at: subliminal.lithium@gmail.com

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.

Sean Lamberger Not entirely what you'd expect from the promo art, this strange hybrid of chilling suspense and black comedy bears a surprisingly deep, developed cast of characters and a bitter, intense message about the origins of a corporate monster. Kevin Spacey is at his usual best as the pompous, demeaning studio executive with a finger in every pie, while journeyman Frank Whaley (Brett from Pulp Fiction) overplays the wide-eyed, naive farmboy act as Spacey's hapless assistant at the edge. But while early scenes hint this is just another predictable, pull-for-the-little-man light comedy, the narrative's regular flashes forward in the timeline paint a larger, more sinister picture. When the dust settles, Spacey is revealed to be far more complicated and damaged than he lets on, Whaley has worked himself into a deep, dark pit of trouble and neither man is who they were at the outset. Bewildering at times due to the jolting changes in tone and atmosphere, it lingers with the viewer well after the credits have rolled.

jennifer626 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).