The public may be ready for a January B-movie (that is,
Michael Mann’s “Blackhat”) about cyberterror, and particularly when the idea is
not really terrorism but thuggery disguised as politics. A
nuclear power plant in China is hacked, threatening a meltdown, and the
Chicago commodity exchange is hacked simultaneously. Manipulating soy
futures. At least soy is easier to “take
delivery” on than pork bellies.
The government is so desperate that it lets “ethical hacker”
Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) out of prison to solve the case. His history is illustrative: He had served 18 months for a bar fight, and
then, as a felon, unable to get normal work in Silicon Valley, so he got hired
to hack, got caught and sentenced to 15 years.
He indeed has street smarts, manipulation and assertiveness skills, and
some of the toughness of prison, not common with programmers. He's fluent talking about RAT's (remote access tools).
He is “ethical” in that he says he went out of his way never
to hurt individual people, only big banks.
Like most young men in Putin’s Russia today, he needed to make a living
somehow. He’s rather a robin hood, ready
to protect the little guy, physically if necessary. He’s rather a revolutionary, almost a
Bolshevist fighter. And of course he develops a romance with a co-plotter, a
young Chinese woman (Wei Tang). The
leader from the Chinese side is charismatic enough, played by Leehom Wang.
Chris Hemsworth is appropriately physically spectacular, at
29. His chest is still completely
hairless, and before the closeup camera a lot (like you don’t want anamorphic
wide screen then). Another hacker in
California is depicted as covered with gang tattoos, which wouldn’t be
characteristic. He types very fast, and
never has trouble memorizing long, meaningless passwords.
The movie has impressive shots inside the nuclear power
plant (although the sarcophagus in the Ukraine is more interesting in real
life), and scenery in Hong Kong (about half the movie), Malaysia (the open pit
tin mines are spectacular, and although near the coast, remind me of “mountaintop
removal” in the IS), and Jakarta. The connection to nuclear power plant terror—see
the movie, that’s a spoiler.
The credits mention Kuala Lumpur, but the buildings in the
movie match those in Jakarta on Wikipedia.
There is a climactic scene near a merry-go-round (echo of Hitchcock’s “Strangers
on a Train”) and Balinese dance festival. The shootout and violence may recall the terror disco attack in Indonesia in 2002 (another one was prevented).
So the film doesn’t quite make Nick into a “James Bond”. It tends to stick to the conventions of
Screenwriting 101 for commercial movies (especially those that need to make
money in Asia as well as the US), keeping the protagonist in maximum trouble
all the time.
The film also uses another optical device – showing the
insides of a printed circuit, with the electrons making their journey. This image comes right out of the 1979 Disney
movie “Tron”. Remember, users are what
our programs are for.
Viola Davis stars as one of the fibbies, and is pretty effective.
Viola Davis stars as one of the fibbies, and is pretty effective.
The official site is here. This time, Legendary went through Universal
rather than Warner Brothers.
Wikipedia attribution link for Jakarta picture (author Sanko, CC-SA 3.0 unported).
I saw this before a fair late Sunday afternoon crowd at AMC
Tysons, maybe in ETS.
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