While it’s far from an explosive film, at least Robert Redford’s “The Company You Keep” does start with a bang. Fuzzy black-and-white and faded color newsreels fill the screen with alternating fast-talking heads and clouds of smoke; the footage features both shots of the Vietnam War and scenes of bombing on the home front by the militant protest group Weather Underground. The film clearly desires to be important and historically relevant, and it seems at first to be that rare movie that is both thrilling and thoughtful. Yet despite its electric opening montage and some suspense early on, the film ultimately lapses into a personal drama more concerned with the relationships of its half-baked—but mostly well-acted—characters than with the moral quandaries it only barely grazes.

Redford himself plays Jim Grant, probably the best developed character in the film—and, thanks to the ever-present vintage Redford charm, far and away the most likable. Grant, a widower with an adorably spirited daughter (Jackie Evancho), was a Weather Underground operative in his youth, but was driven into hiding by a murder charge; for the past 30 years he has been laying low as a lawyer in Albany, New York.

There are few stars like Redford left, men who can command a screen with little more than a half-smile. In fact, for most of the movie, Redford’s Grant sports a cap pulled low and a pair of dark aviators. In this mode he is a composed action hero, and without the guise he becomes a bright-eyed, loving father with just enough gruffness to be believable; Redford embodies both personae with his experienced hand.

The action hero emerges when a former militant and accomplice, Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon), is arrested by the FBI and a young reporter named Ben Shepard (a bespectacled and scruffy Shia LaBeouf) digs up the truth about Grant. As Shepard, LaBeouf is never much more than a pair of puppy dog eyes and a swarm of questions. As Grant becomes a fugitive, the film tries to make Shepard a second protagonist by introducing a touch of romance and a break-in scene at his apartment; however, the admittedly enthusiastic LaBeouf never becomes much more than an observer, a mechanism to reveal plot points. It doesn’t help that the power players who appears in cameos throughout the movie—such as Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte, and Anna Kendrick—consistently seem more exciting than LaBeouf’s Shepard. Neither LaBeouf nor the supporting cast can keep the focus off Redford for long, but this is a good thing, as the story is truly Grant’s. As Grant tries to evade the unyielding FBI, his path remains baffling to all but Shepard, who realizes that Grant is after more than escape.

There’s a tricky moral dilemma here, at least at first. The film asks: were Grant’s actions justified? Do 30 years of clean living make up for a past misdeed? For a moment, there is an interesting conflict, but the twists of the film, which themselves are often revealed anticlimactically, manage to skirt around this tension rather than confront it. Ultimately, the film is not really about the Weather Underground at all; it centers on the relationship between Grant and an old Underground flame, Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie). Their past relationship is often discussed but only vaguely sketched, and it is presented in a way that makes it overwhelmingly uninteresting. He’s changed but she’s the same, yet he’s not over her and she’s moved on. It’s not unoriginal stuff, but in a movie that purports to be significant, it feels like a distracting cop-out from actually dealing with the film’s historical background.

All these quibbles would be minor if the film was actually entertaining. But Redford makes sure not to let the blood pressures of his viewers rise too high, almost always keeps things chugging along at a leisurely pace. Aside from a tense, intricately intense escape scene in a New York hotel, the most truly captivating part of this film is watching its guest stars outshine Shia LaBeouf. “The Company You Keep” is a political thriller with few thrills and little real discussion of politics, and not even Redford’s wizened smile can cover up the emptiness at its core.

—Staff writer Tree A. Palmedo can be reached at treepalmedo@college.harvard.edu.