“Paranoia” seems like a stereotyped “B-movie” thriller about
the highest tech world, but it does deal with some hot stuff.
Directed by Robert Luketic, with Australian backing, the
film does present a stylized look at New York high corporate life. Maybe it is appropriately cynical. It follows
the conventional wisdom of screenwriting class and film school, to
insurmountable crises, one after another, for the hero.
And indeed Australian born Liam Hemsworth, somewhat
resembling Tom Welling, looks the part of Adam Cassidy, even if his acting style
is a bit restrained. More interesting is
his slightly shorter friend Kevin, played by Lucas Till, who is even a better
geek. In fact, Till plays almost the
same character that he did in “Crush”, if a little less obviously
athletic. And he has to overcome injury
inflicted by the evil of others.
Another element of the plot is filial piety. Adam takes care of his father (Richard
Dreyfuss), half on oxygen but smoking while dying of emphysema. In an early
episode, a health insurance company (pre-Obamacare) drops out of covering his
care. To a screenwriter, that sets up
the urgency. New York State, in fact,
does not have a filial responsibility law.
So Adam gets set up when he gets fired after a
presentation. The boss, Wyatt (Gary Oldman)
doesn’t have the class of Donald Trump, either.
I wondered if the name Wyatt came from the character (who burns his own
oil well) in “Atlas Shrugged”. Pretty soon Adam gets summoned off the NYC
streets to go to work for competitor Jock Goddard (a bald Harrison Ford), in a
big industrial espionage caper. The
advice is “don’t get caught”.
Yes, there’s a moral lesson here. The people who play by the rules get run over
by the cheaters (hedge fund managers).
There are no moral values, there are winners and losers – in Jock’s
mind.
The technology is freaky and interesting. Do you want your smart phone to know
everything about you? (I wonder about
electrocardiograms done by smart phone – can you really do one just by
fingertip contact? Can you do the
Holter monitor without humiliating shaving?
Look here.)
Look at the film a couple days ago, “Terms
and Conditions”. Remember the line, “They
‘trusted me’”
.
But some of the scenes with the computers generate some
suspense. Can Adam get his wireless
connection up fast enough and do a complicated flash drive download before his
assigned girl friend gets out of the shower and catches him? That part of the film was pretty accurate. You have to be competent in bed in a spy job
like this.
Adam is a competent chess player (they should have shown him
play Lucas Till’s character – remember “Crush”). In one scene, he loses a game white White
where he has a rook and several pawns for Black’s Queen. Larry Kaufman would have enjoyed the position
(maybe out of that crazy sacrificial line from the Slav Defense).
And at the very end, Kevin (that is, Till), having
recovered, hand writes some java code (a “method”) on a blackboard as if he
were teaching a programming class.
The disco scene was interesting. Could that have been he Culture Club?
a “method”)
The official site is here from Relativity Media. Yes, “I am Rogue.” The
distributor didn’t publish the length of the film (about 100 minutes even).
I saw this film late in a small auditorium at the Regal
Ballston tonight. It seemed like a
private showing just for me. Too much competition this week.
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