“I believe that you can kill characters only once, but you can hurt them every day,” In the Company of Men writer-director Neil Labute explains. The characters in this film treat each other with the same sadism Labute feels toward them.

Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy) are two men who have been hurt by women one too many times. Together for a six-week, out-of-town business deal, Chad talks Howard into a vicious plan to get revenge on the female sex. Both men will choose a vulnerable woman (in this case, a deaf typist named Christine) and woo her independently over the six-week period, with the intention of abandoning her when their work is finished.

“Trust me, she’ll be reaching for the sleeping pills within a week, and we’ll be laughing about this until we’re very old men,” Chad explains, taking a generous helping of the laughter in advance.

In our age of political correctness, In the Company of Men stands out as a severely politeness-challenged film. Though it has been described by many reviewers as a black comedy, the comic elements in the film seem almost accidental. What we see are characters constantly making off-color jokes, though the camera’s stoic eye reveals nothing about how we are expected to react.

Labute describes his film as a “cinematic inkblot test,” which is precisely why it is so effective. Whether you are a feminist, a misogynist, or nestled somewhere comfortably in between, you will leave In the Company of Men with strong opinions about what you have seen. Some people in the audience will laugh at all the one-liners Chad has up his sleeve, while others will see them as just as tasteless as Helen Keller jokes.

At first, Chad’s rants and raves sound like the distorted philosophies of the crazy guys you try not to look at on a bus. However, what begin as comments that can be casually dismissed become much more venomous as the movie progresses.

In one scene, Chad reads over a company brochure while waiting for a meeting to begin, pointing at each of the employees pictured and describing how much he hates them. With clues like these, it doesn’t take long to realize that there is something very wrong with Chad and that his plans will not stop at hurting an innocent woman.

Chad craves control, and his prejudices are unbounded. Like Remi, the sociopath in Man Bites Dog, Chad sees everyone as game for ridicule and domination. A young black intern stumbles into Chad’s trap in what could arguably be the film’s most uncomfortable scene. Chad begins by verbally degrading the intern and finishes him off with unquestionable proof of his power over his victim.

Howard, on the other hand, reluctantly plays along. While Chad dominates every scene (a combination of Eckhart’s stature and his ability to combine the charm of a schoolboy with the intellect of a frat boy gone bad), Howard seems to disappear even when he is the only person in the scene (perfectly illustrated in a telephone conversation with his mother). He bends whichever way people push him, and, not surprisingly, ends up falling for Christine.

Stacy Edwards is like an American Juliette Binoche. Edwards’ beauty and deep-eyed modesty perfectly convey the self-dependent personality of Christine. To perfect the voice that serves as the butt of many of Chad’s jokes, Edwards watched hours of special videos and spent time in institutions for the hearing-impaired.

Labute made no mistakes in casting the three main roles, and his actors deftly carry the script. Where the film runs into trouble is in its camerawork, or lack thereof. Labute has a tendency to place the camera in an unusual position and allow it to run indefinitely. The effect (partly the product of a limited budget) draws scenes out longer than they should last and takes more effort from the audience in fighting off boredom.

Perhaps the most peculiar moment in the film is solely a product of the editing and occurs when Chad kisses Christine. The scene preceding the kiss is shot from above eye level, emphasizing Chad’s domination over Christine. As their lips meet, the camera cuts to an extreme close-up. The effect is jarring, equal in meaning and style to the slow-motion punches in Rocky. This is a game, and we already know who will win.

Early in the film Seven, Morgan Freeman has an insight to which neither the audience nor Brad Pitt’s character gives sufficient attention: “You know, this thing’s not going to have a happy ending.”

The same observation is true of In the Company of Men. Sometimes it makes for a better movie when the good guys don’t win.