In The Company of Men - "Let's Hurt Somebody"

In this, my favorite scene from "In The Company Of Men", Chad (Aaron Eckhart) suggests to his business partner Howard (Matt Malloy) that they should simultaneously suduce a vulnerable woman for the sole purpose of dumping her in an effort to boost their own egos, while hurting her as much as possible in the process.

[@joeydeadcat]

Eleven years earlier Aaron Eckhart was playing a different "two-face".

[@thomashernandez8700]

What film? Your post intrigued me.

[@joeydeadcat]

@@thomashernandez8700 1997's In The Company Of Men; he was a real snake in that film.

[@sailordarty9032]

I thought he looked familiar!

[@olaoluwaafolayan6554]

This movie was an excellent study in evil and the thing that made it so chilling was that it’s the kind of evil that’s commonplace…

[@5PercentTint]

Women watched this and took to Tinder

[@mrinalkantinath1271]

"Because I could" that sums up Chad

[@mike1422214222]

I remember this flick. Very negative vibe. Perhaps an urban legend: When screening in NYC, the two male stars, while walking down the street, were slapped a couple times by unknown random women.

[@joshspawn161]

These are the psychopaths who don't end up killing people and make the news

[@davedvlaries7764]

_Company_ and it's equally blood chilling follow-up _Your Friends And Neighbors_ are two of the best _anti_ feel-good movies I've ever seen. I wonder, if we could introduce Chad to _Fatal Attraction's_ Alex Forrest, how many baby sharks they might spawn.

[@dcram76]

didn't aaron eckhart play a Howard type in Your Friends And Neighbors? He was kind of a pathetic reject in that movie.

[@buddinganarchist]

A lesser film would have the girl hunt down and kill the man. He wins in his cruelty game because guys like him tend to win. The point of our misshaped corporate jungle. Innocent women are the victims. The dorky guy is us tainted by the crime.

[@JuanDeSoCal]

Well, I think he won because, of the two males, he was the one who was true to himself, a 100% asshole that is. The Dorkier-looking friend had inner misgivings from the start, but still went along with it to try to impress his friend and ended up getting his soul burned. And the woman... well she turned out to have inadequate powers of discernment. She makes the arguably shallow choice and picks the man who is her true tormentor because he's generically handsome.

[@Th-tg4zm]

@@JuanDeSoCal I agree with your assessment but it’s hard to blame the woman as Chad genuinely was more charming than Howard too. He wreaked of insecurity on their dates

[@SardaukarNo1]

NO. the one Chad is going to hurt is vulnerable Howard, cause Chad sabotages his work to take over in the home office.

[@letolethe3344]

@@JuanDeSoCal The woman made a "shallow" choice by choosing a man she is attracted to, who acted romantic, affectionate, interested in her, and caring? So she pretty much deserved what she got? Men like you are the reason real sociopathic men like this get away with it.

[@JamarfromAfar]

HE SOUNDS SO DIFFERENT! BUT HIS CHIN IS THE SAME!

[@Jeanninecomeau]

Every girl/woman needs to see this movie.

[@andrewrodgers176]

Why? Guys like this don't really exist. There are heartless people out there but this level of calculating cruelness is fiction.

[@andrewrodgers176]

Isaacahh h In no higher numbers than similar females

[@lekkki1]

the fuck it is.

[@VivoLaRihvolution]

they do exist, Howard in the form of "nice guys/incels" and Chad in the form of narcasists and sociopaths. There are also less extreme versions of him in those guys that will just say anything do anything just to get into a girls pants and pretend they care about her when they don't and take off as soon as they get what they want. Also I saw a very disturbing video once on r/iamapieceofshit, of a man bragging about having sex with a disabled woman and deliberately penetrating her ass without asking just to see if she would notice that is something Chad would do. That being said there are also women who behave like this too. I have met male and female threads in my lifetime and male and female Howards I'm sure you have too if you think about it. I think the guys that made this film went that right because they just write men very well because they are men after all.

[@1greenMitsi]

you are ghey

[@thiagodeandrade7081]

I was fighting with the perception I knew him, but I did not remember "Harvey Dent" was in this movie.

[@olaoluwaafolayan6554]

In a way, you could consider this dress rehearsal for that role because he was playing a very - dare I say it - _two-faced_ character here lol

[@daleva187goligo]

i need the opening scene of this movie (the one right before this) where they are sitting down next to eachother and talking, im puttin together a piece, a social commentary kinda thing

[@poltergiest11]

i really hope peoples are more creative and not end up influenced to cruelty.

[@dkthg]

poltergiest11 too late

[@ambskater97]

I hate when people say a writer "predicted the future," but Neil LaBute perfectly portrayed incels before the incel movement even started.

[@MasterMote]

Who is the incel in this movie? I thought this movie predicted the whole "Chad" thing, the guys name is literally Chad!!!! And he acts like a Chad (as far as i understand the term)

[@Synthetic_Strigiforme]

I love how "incel" has now just become a meaningless catch-all term for any man a woman doesn't like, regardless of whether or not he's actually involuntarily celibate or not. You do realize the character Chad sleeps with at least a couple different women in this movie, right? Actual incels don't take advantage of women, because that would require the ability to get women in the first place.

[@Lifeoftheparty8290]

It’s a matter of Chad vs incel in the end Chad always gets the girls and does as he pleases

[@longmemory1620]

that laugh 0:41

[@midnight15086]

This movie is so freaking evil. It's hysterical. If you can laugh at this movie and not get all bent out of shape about it, welcome to the slim minority of ppl who get truly dark comedies. :-D

[@seadragonadventures]

midnight15086 Agree 100%. Check out (if you haven't already) Happiness. Also, Gummo. - AB in SB

[@midnight15086]

Andrew Baker I have seen Happiness, I thought it was wickedly funny :-)

[@longmemory1620]

eckhart was beyond oscars

[@johnbonaccorsi]

midnight15086: The movie isn't evil. It's a sad story of an ingenious, smart-alecky sadist.

[@johnbonaccorsi]

midnight15086: Interviewer: [D]oes it frustrate you when people laugh when it’s inappropriate or are shocked when they should be laughing? Solondz: Well, it’s beyond my control. 8 years ago after Storytelling came out, I said that my movies aren’t for everyone, especially people who like them. When I said that I think it was motivated by an experience I had with a college kid who came up to me after a screening of Happiness. He loved the movie and was a little drunk I suppose, he said “I loved it, it was great and when he raped that kid it was hilarious.” I knew I was in trouble. collider.com/todd-solondz-dark-horse-interview/

[@Th-tg4zm]

Borderline Shakespearian

[@lobo2k]

Gross

[@lekkki1]

I saw this film and thought it was well done. It was, however, one of the most hideous groups of people (males in particular) that I have ever seen. I have known men (and a few women) who are very much like this. Sort of a hyper-blend of extreme narcissism and viciousness coupled with their cowardice and self-loathing.Essentially very pathetic people who know how pathetic they are, and want the world to suffer for it. It really was a dark film, I saw the director in an interview once, he basically said it was a dark film, and he wanted to draw attention to people like these guys, because they are real, and they are out there.

[@letolethe3344]

All women everywhere: Yeah. We know.

[@cowboybeboop9420]

@@letolethe3344 That`s a joke. Women wreck men way more than the other way around. They more or less do the same thing as the Chad character accept in the end they divorce him and take 70% of their stuff and it happens way more than people think. Some 50% of marriages end in divorce.

[@smecking]

I've met guys like this in real life but they were too stupid to articulate their evil.

[@Godzilla52]

This is a really funny movie, the dialogue all shoots out like David Mamet play. It's too bad most filmmakers in America don't have the balls by average to make black comedies like this one.

[@mjpharinafarina7620]

Really funny?? You think that because you don't realize real monsters like this exist. It called being a sociopath or anti social personality disorder....and if you have ever been the victim of one, you're not laughing at this movie...because you know how very real it is.

[@margheritacardelable]

This is not a black comedy you idiot.

[@fixxer47]

It literally has "black comedy" written on the official poster.

[@BeNiceToMeProductions]

:) kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYXCoZh7fqx0jNk

[@Feoktistovs]

@@mjpharinafarina7620 But it's still has a dark humour, the movie clearly identifies as one by the dialogue and the acting. Yes, it's a serious topic and people like these deserve to be stopped at all costs but... Some of the stuff they were saying was seriously funny. But I also understand if people didn't find non of this funny, this type of comedy is definitely not for everybody.

[@monkeyb1820]

They should have made, maybe around 2000 or so, a Patrick Bateman vs. Chad movie, the final showdown. Kind of like Freddie vs. Jason.

[@bullhead4963]

they did it in 2008, its called The Dark Knight

[@kanemccarthy1979]

@@bullhead4963 HA

[@turkishjanitor3666]

Chad would've won.

[@mattsharkey8437]

Chad is a reflection of his former abuser. He's not clever and he's not smart. He's just a charming salesman who has good looks and knows who's socially below him. If he was at the bottom of the totem pole in this film, he would be doing this to the mail clerk lol

[@cowboybeboop9420]

Chad actually has a lot of things going for him. He is smart ,and dominant, and determined and cynical.

[@mattsharkey8437]

@@cowboybeboop9420 Just a reflection

[@ahlishaholloway233]

I always enjouy Labute's films,they seem to really cut to the core of what western civilization is.

[@afearofbuttons]

Zurie Pope yeah Wicked Man really cuts to the core of the human experience ;)

[@deathmetaldouglas69]

"I don't trust anything that bleeds for a week and doesn't die". Classic.

[@godemperorofmankind3.091]

something that does that also should not be fucked with

[@letolethe3344]

Yes. Classic misogyny trying hard to be funny.

[@deathmetaldouglas69]

@@letolethe3344 It did not have to try hard. Now go eat out Taylor Lorenze you dork.

[@danielchavez4403]

I hope Shout Factory or Scream Factory release this film on Blu Ray.

[@jovanrocksable]

This movie was so fucked up and ingenious

[@SparkleFilms]

I really enjoyed the atmosphere in this movie

[@mzytryck]

0:14 "I'm just talking now, so jump in" Such a brilliant bit of manipulation from Chad; having explicitly invited Howard to jump in and say anything from "great idea, here's a thought I've got to make it even better!" to "that's sick and so are you, I'm getting the hell out of here" he frames it as a conversation of equals in which they're both playing a part. This way, Howard doesn't feel manipulated, nor (when he realises he doesn't actually enjoy the sadistic game) does he feel like he can absolve himself of responsibility for it on the grounds "it was all Chad's idea". However, since Howard DOESN'T jump in, because he's too shocked by what he's hearing to collect his thoughts properly, he has completely ceded control of the conversation and the plan to Chad, and remains his puppet for the whole film, while having just enough conscience to feel terrible that he wasn't strong enough to actually object to this hideous idea from the start.

[@kerryfry1857]

One of the cleverest movies ever. Underrated.

[@raynabozny6309]

Most clever

[@ninethreefivesix]

2 monsters talking. Only 1 of them is clever.

[@GregHuffman1987]

Neil labrute

[@koroconnell]

Ew

[@ddave7026]

Evil.

[@halbailey8843]

In many ways this film reminds me of Dangerous Liaisons with Aaron Eckhart as a gender-swapped version of Glenn Close's character.

[@quigleymonster]

Sorry that I didn't get back to you sooner, I've been super busy. Do you still need the previous scene?

[@daleva187goligo]

can u please post it

[@thomashernandez8700]

Didn't the woman kill herself at the end?

[@letolethe3344]

No. She healed, got a new job, moved on, and rejected the pathetic Howard who came slinking to her job uninvited to try and scream his way into heart. She wins.

[@daleva187goligo]

ok thnx alot

[@quigleymonster]

Done

[@daleva187goligo]

ya

[@tikletik]

I think the reason why women get so freaked out over this, is precisely because this is exactly the kind of sick garbage they regularly do to men. And they know what a nightmare life will be like for them (and everybody else, but they don't really care about anything besides themselves) if men start acting in the same amoral way they do.

[@theundergradanalysis]

Olivia Armstrong So many people seem to struggle with the simple concept 'not all men and women are the same'. If someone retorts with the asinine statement 'but more women are cruel like this than men' I'd say back that there is no way or proving it and that your own experience with the opposite sex reflects next to nothing about the opposite sex as a whole.

[@tikletik]

Izaak Alexia I totally agree. It grates on my nerves whenever I hear some fems natter on about how women are better suited at men at raising kids, relationship management, kinder, gentler, more spiritual, etc. etc. Oh wait, that's not what you mean is it?

[@tikletik]

Olivia Armstrong It's such a turn on to watch you apologize to me. Down on those knees girl! :D

[@theundergradanalysis]

tikletik No I agree with that too but in this particular instance you're the one making blatant, un-backed up and foolish generalizations. It sort of seems like you hate women a bit.

[@theundergradanalysis]

Ah shit yes, just a troll. Gonna not reply