Grade: C-

Verdict: The company's fine, but the plot is mushy. Real mushy.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

In his a-bit-cutesy cameo in "Ocean's Twelve," Topher Grace jokes that he "totally phoned in that Dennis Quaid movie."

That Dennis Quaid movie would be "In Good Company," an insipid and inexplicably acclaimed cross-generational comedy about workplace Darwinism.

Dan Foreman (Quaid) is an old-school boomer in his early 50s who's been the very successful head of ad sales at Sports America magazine for 20 years. But when a multinational conglomerate named Globecom buys the magazine's parent company, Dan is shoved out of his corner office and replaced by Carter Duryea (Grace), a 26-year-old corporate weasel who's made an impression on Globecom's Murdoch-like CEO (Malcolm McDowell) by hawking dinosaur-shaped cellphones to the under-5 set.

Carter knows all the right corporate catchphrases ("synergy" anyone?) and, in corporate-"vision" fashion, he labels Sports America "a portal to the world of cross-promotion" (cereal-box factoids, anyone?).

But ... he doesn't know a thing about ad sales, which is why he keeps Dan on as his "wing man."And Dan accepts because his wife (Marg Helgenberger) has just announced she's having a late-in-life baby, and his doted-on teenage daughter, Alex (Scarlett Johansson), wants to attend tuition-intensive New York University.

If that's not pressure enough, in a plot-mandated unlikely turn of events, Alex embarks on an affair with Carter.

The Carter-Dan paradigm is a promising one. Sushi guy vs. steak guy. One's on his first divorce (from Selma Blair), the other's on his second mortgage. Apple means computers to Carter, the Beatles to Dan.

Unfortunately, writer-director Paul Weitz, who made the very fine "About a Boy" after making the very successful "American Pie," doesn't know whether he wants "In Good Company" to be "The Graduate" turned inside out (here, Carter would be the one saying "plastics" to Dan) or a late-era Steve Martin movie, complete with collapsing cribs. Some of these jokes would be perfectly at home in Martin's "Cheaper By the Dozen."

As satire or even insightful social commentary, the movie is a bust. Luckily, there's good work by both Grace and Quaid. The former has a puppy-dog appeal, which makes Carter less a villain than someone in way over his head. Quaid, who's becoming one of our best 50-ish actors, gives a centered portrayal that gets to the essence of problem-plagued middle-aged men with Young Turks snapping at their heels.

The supporting characters fare less well. Helgenberger functions mostly as an incubator while Johansson's behavior is absolutely inexplicable (Daddy's girl beds Daddy's boss?). And the usually excellent David Paymer, cast as Dan's colleague most likely to be fired next, has a wife who makes more money than he does, so he delivers a barrage of "Take my wife, please" zingers such as, "My wife got a promotion. I hope she'll raise my allowance." Ba-da-bing.

The fast-changing world of the workplace is a terrific setting/target for a movie. Think of the anarchic "Office Space" or Michael Caine's incisive Die Yuppie Scum! black comedy, "A Shock to the System," or the shameless and shamelessly clever anti-P.C. French film "The Closet," in which Daniel Auteuil pretends to be gay to protect his job.

By comparison, "In Good Company" is a toothless, pretty-as-a-pink-slip picture. Harmless and complacent, yes. Discerning and risky, no.