★★☆☆☆
16 February 2015
This article is a review of BLACKHAT. |
“Am I being tangible?” Carol Barrett (Viola Davis)
The Earth as light and communication. A power station. Fluorescence flashing along circuitry and conduits (in a sub-2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY visual motif). The cooling system of a nuclear power station in Chai Wan, China, fails causing a meltdown, then an explosion. No, Godzilla has not hacked into the mainframe. A similar opening to the 2014 summer blockbuster, the two movies are both visually arresting while narrative/characterisation weak. Having helmed three superlative works (MANHUNTER, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, HEAT), more than most directors, maestro Michael Mann’s latest offering is always greeted with anticipation. BLACKHAT is anticlimactic and dated. We waited six years for this?!
The idea of a joint American-Chinese taskforce, formed to tackle a formidable cyber criminal, had the makings of a renaissance for Mann, after the half-baked duo of MIAMI VICE and PUBLIC ENEMIES. Expert teams facing off are the filmmaker’s staple. Like Tony Scott post-MAN ON FIRE altered his style to blown out sub-Paul Greengrass incoherence (see DOMINO for the apex of that choice), Michael Mann has also post-COLLATERAL evolved/devolved (depending on your stance) his technique into an unsatisfying impressionistic hotchpotch of imagery/characterisation/story elements. Somehow we are meant to be invested in players haphazardly presented, in a tale sketchily envisioned.
The Earth as light and communication. A power station. Fluorescence flashing along circuitry and conduits (in a sub-2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY visual motif). The cooling system of a nuclear power station in Chai Wan, China, fails causing a meltdown, then an explosion. No, Godzilla has not hacked into the mainframe. A similar opening to the 2014 summer blockbuster, the two movies are both visually arresting while narrative/characterisation weak. Having helmed three superlative works (MANHUNTER, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, HEAT), more than most directors, maestro Michael Mann’s latest offering is always greeted with anticipation. BLACKHAT is anticlimactic and dated. We waited six years for this?!
The idea of a joint American-Chinese taskforce, formed to tackle a formidable cyber criminal, had the makings of a renaissance for Mann, after the half-baked duo of MIAMI VICE and PUBLIC ENEMIES. Expert teams facing off are the filmmaker’s staple. Like Tony Scott post-MAN ON FIRE altered his style to blown out sub-Paul Greengrass incoherence (see DOMINO for the apex of that choice), Michael Mann has also post-COLLATERAL evolved/devolved (depending on your stance) his technique into an unsatisfying impressionistic hotchpotch of imagery/characterisation/story elements. Somehow we are meant to be invested in players haphazardly presented, in a tale sketchily envisioned.
Uber-hacker Sadak (Yorick van Wageningen), revealed in the trailer, but not in the film until near the conclusion, is practising for an endgame the Chinese and American authorities are trying to work out. First the nuclear power plant, then the Chicago soy trading market is jacked. Money, even though denied, is the motive. In light of television show ‘Utopia’ and KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE, baddies having simplistic rationales should now, more than ever, be a thing of the past.
Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) is serving a 13-year stretch for cyber illegality. Four years in and manipulating the prison’s commissariat, so that each inmate gets to spend an extra $900 on tuck (for sh*ts and giggles?), lands him in a cheerless, monastic cell. Meanwhile, Captain Chen Dawai (Wang Leehom), in charge of teaming with the F.B.I. and U.S. Department of Justice, is also the ex-college roommate of Hathaway, and requires his genius-coding buddy to aid in their analysis of the threat. Electronic tagged and in the care of a U.S. Marshall (Holt McCallany), Hathaway is permitted to jet-set about the world barely accompanied.
From hacking to the hackneyed, an anaemic romantic subplot is squeezed in. Dawai’s sister, Lien (Tang Wei), is on board with her I.T. skills. Sexual tension signposts are hammered unsubtly into scenes. There’s even a love scene in a multi-storey car park. Sexy. On the other hand, camaraderie through professional expertise is what Mann adroitly demonstrates.
Add in techno babble, for dreary repartee (TV series ‘Halt and Catch Fire’ suffers from the same debilitation), and BLACKHAT at times becomes leaden.
It’s not all negative. Mann and cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh do a remarkable job of capturing cityscapes, reminding of Ridley Scott’s Tokyo-set BLACK RAIN. The overtly digital look is so vibrant and the action sequences crunch, from hand-to-hand in a restaurant to a police shoot-out (though in the latter a couple of the S.W.A.T. team equivalent weirdly back into the heavily armed nefarious gang to an unhappy result for the former).
Come the denouement, reason already hanging by a thread, falls away from the film. Confronting adversaries singlehandedly and firearm-less, wearing catalogues as body armour, against half a dozen machine gun toting thugs defies rationality. In a striking festival, the thousands of fluidly moving extras barely bat eyelids as guns are drawn by civilian foreigners jostling among them. Wouldn’t you be running to safety at that point?
Too many logical flaws ruin BLACKHAT.
(Whatever happened to ‘Lucky Star’, the adaptation of his advert, where Michael Mann directed Benicio Del Toro as the luckiest man in the world?)