What am I hoping for?

In Good Company has so many things going for it... likeable actors, some lovely, unpredictable scenes, a hip soundtrack. So why does it fizzle so completely by the end?

It's a question of tension. At first, we're on board with the characters-- middle-aged Dennis Quaid suddenly replaced at work by wunderkind Topher Grace. Topher falls for Dennis's daughter. A great set-up. The film trailers really well. But then... we realize the likely candidate for protagonist isn't Dennis Quaid, the has-been... he's pretty much a great guy and doesn't really have a whole lot of changing to do. So our guy must be Topher. The guy with a Porsche and nothing meaningful in his life.

Well, Topher's romance is over pretty early. The romance doesn't cause Topher to change in any way, and he's not really responsible for the end of the affair. And when things go badly at work, it' s largely because of elements out of his hands-- a corporate culture thing. And he and Dennis even seem to be white-flagging it. So we're left going into the third act with no sense of what the ultimate *problem* in this story is. What does Topher have to do, ultimately? Stand up to Dennis? He seems to want to become a man more like Dennis, so should his ultimate dilemma be, he's got to quit this soul-sucking job and get a life?

The issue here is with the central dramatic question. That question that drives the story, and tells us who to root for and what we're rooting for. The story sets up a couple of good questions-- what'll happen to the romance when Dennis finds out Topher's dating his daughter? Who will triumph as the king of the office, young or old, arrogant or down to earth? Or will they somehow bridge the gap between generations? None of these lines is followed through. Some of these questions are answered too early, some not really at all. So what we're left with is a kind of waiting without knowing what we're waiting for. Which is death to third acts. We need to know what's at stake and what our protagonist has to do, otherwise the third act is just more stuff happening. Especially in a case like this, where it's so clear how satisfying the climax could have been... Topher throwing everything material/superficial away for the sake of the real life he's chosen.