Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy) are old college pals who now both work for the same faceless corporation. They have both been sent to a nameless city to complete an important but equally nameless project. They have also both recently been dumped by their respective girlfriends. Which is why, passing through the airport, Chad proposes the deal: they wine and dine the same quiet, unassuming woman for the six weeks they are in town. At the end, she will be dumped as cruelly and as casually as possible. By abusing one woman, Chad announces, they will abuse all women. Payback.

Writer-director Neil LaBute's debut feature is a striped, minimalist, overly talky beast. On paper it has the feel of filmed theatre (LaBute has written plays), but up on screen the effect is altogether more disconcerting. LaBute clearly shows us real places - airports, hotel rooms, offices - but so closely cropped, so clearly is the emphasis on what is being said other than what is being shown, that the film becomes progressively more airless. It's no accident that we think of David Mamet.

And what is being said could scarcely be further outside of the Hollywood mainstream. Chad and Howard are appalling people. Appalling men. Howard, maybe, has a flicker of humanity in his weasel heart, but Chad is nothing but a silver-tongued, boorish monster. Howard is ostensibly the boss, but it's Chad pulling the strings for both him and the unfortunate Christine (Stacy Edwards). She, in particular, is all but denied a voice, both metaphorically by the film's protagonists, and literally by LaBute's decision to make her deaf. She can speak, but Chad is unsparing in his insults. Women, he says, are "meat and gristle and hatred."

Which can tend to give In The Company Of Men the occasional air of formal exercise. It's a rigorously shot (perhaps the result of a tight 11 day schedule), rigorously structured piece, its timeframe announced by weekly title cards that act as a countdown to the final insult. LaBute's film, an astringent, highly individual exercise in emotional sadism, is both visually and conceptually more satisfying than his follow-up, the crushingly self-absorbed Your Friends and Neighbours.

It does, however, leave itself open to some awkward questioning. Why, for example, would a narcissist like Chad be caught dating an invalid (deafness surely so labelled in his personal lexicon), even on a limited contract? And surely no one, given the atmosphere in corporate America, would leave themselves open to the kind of accusations that would follow his demand for a black junior to drop his pants so Chad can see if he has the "balls" for the job? LaBute has overplayed his hand, but it does make his point: if it didn't make him a faggot, one senses that Chad would always be far happier fucking his own kind.