The Company You Keep

MUST SEE: Robert Redford's The Company You Keep (US, 2012) - Jim Grant (Robert Redford), a civil rights lawyer and single father, must go on the run when a brash young reporter (Shia LaBeouf) exposes his true identity as a former 1970s radical fugitive wanted for murder. Sparking a nationwide  manhunt, Grant sets off on a cross-country journey to clear his name. Also starring Susan Sarandon, Terrence Howard, Anna Kendrick, Stanley Tucci, Chris Cooper and Nick Nolte. "Old hippies never die, they just smell that way," bumperstickers used to say, but the dropouts largely come up smelling like roses in "The Company You Keep," Robert Redford's unabashedly heartfelt but competent tribute to 1960s idealism. Cannily casting eminent baby-boomer thesps -- including Julie Christie, who was a poster kid for the counterculture -- against young name actors like Shia LaBeouf, the pic attempts to bridge the generation gap with this story of a Weather Underground fugitive on the lam, played by Redford himself. Although more engaging than the helmer's last few films, "Company" won't spark riots at the box office. 2012VENoc, 2012TOR. RATING: 8