Call it compassion fatigue, but I can't muster a lot of sympathy for Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck) — an arrogant, high-wheeling, big-spending corporate salesman and workaholic family man — when he gets laid off and has to sell his Patriots season tickets. Or for the founder and head of the company he once worked for, Gene McClary (Tommy Lee Jones), after he gets squeezed out of the picture and has to settle for a $250 million golden parachute. Devoid of the edginess of the prescient corporate-raider satire Other People's Money (1991), but not as smarmy as 2009's Up in the Air, John Wells's topical, multi-character drama works best as an acting exercise for its top-notch cast, which includes the always fascinating Chris Cooper as the film's most complex and ambiguous victim of hard times. Also on the plus side is Kevin Costner as Bobby's flinty, blue-collar brother-in-law — from the sound of it, he's been working on his Boston accent since Thirteen Days.
