BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Apparently, co-starring in the TNT miniseries "The Company" was a bit of an ordeal for Michael Keaton.
"The other thing about television is it's so (expletive) fast that you have no time. You just have to be ready to go at any moment," said Keaton, who plays CIA counterintelligence expert James Jesus Angleton (aka Mother) in the three-part, six-hour drama based on the historical novel by Robert Littel.
Part 1 (Sunday, 6, 8 and 10 p.m., TNT) opens with three young, idealistic friends being recruited to fight in the Cold War — Jack McAuliffe (Chris O'Donnell) and Leo Kritzky (Alessandro Nivola) go to work for the CIA ("The Company") in its early days; Yevgeny Tsipin (Rory Cochrane) goes to work for the KGB. The two-hour installment (shown with fewer-than-normal commercial interruptions) revolves around a search for a mole inside British intelligence — a mole that Harvey Torriti (Alfred Molina) (aka The Sorcerer) insists exists, while Angleton resists the idea.
More accustomed to working in films — it's been 25 years since he had a regular role in a TV series — Keaton told TV critics making "The Company" was "not the most pleasant experience."
"Normally, you have a lot of preparation time and a lot of boring time sitting around a movie set, but at least you get kind of a rhythm going," he said. "And then this thing, it was so difficult to keep that pace up. But I kind of like that. I kind of like the challenge of trying to see if I can figure it out and be ready to go (on) massive amounts of pages and dialogue."
In truth, Keaton had it fairly easy — his character works at CIA headquarters, so all of his scenes were filmed in Toronto, standing in for Washington, D.C. Other members of the cast filmed on locations ranging from Hungary to Puerto Rico.
After a somewhat slow start in Part 1, "The Company" picks up steam. Part psychological thriller, part action thriller, it covers four decades of East-versus-West. Part 2 revolves around the 1956 Hungarian revolt against the Soviets and the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion; Part 3 revolves around the search for a mole inside the CIA itself and carries through to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
And, while Keaton may have thought they were working fast, they were also working good during the three-month shoot. After that slow start, "The Company" becomes riveting television — both epic in scope and personal in nature.
It's not anti-CIA, although failures by "The Company" and the U.S. government are not glossed over.
Half a century later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision not to support the Hungarians reflects very badly on him. And the foolishness of the failed invasion of Cuba is portrayed in all of its ignominy.
"The Company" is taut and extremely violent, filled with scenes of murder, torture and battles.
It's also, despite Keaton's seeming misgivings as to the pace, theatrical in its look and feel. But with the advantage of six hours to tell the story and develop the characters, the narrative works in a way a film could not.
"The Company" is well worth spending six hours watching.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com