BLACKHAT: A Big-Budget Glitch

Although many are still reeling from the aftershocks of the Sony hacking scandal, the growth of the cybercrime era had actually reached red alert long before the North Koreans. It is quite frightening to imagine how a person could be as deadly as a nuclear weapon with just one click of a keyboard, and it remains a problem unresolved by international governments.

As always, Hollywood’s part on this is to jump on the bandwagon, establishing a new genre of its own with collective bits of movie magic in order to turn in easy money for film studios. The release of Blackhat will do little to spark international friction to the extent that The Interview did this past December, but there were hopes that at least the combination of action and cybercrime will offer its audience popcorn fare fun packed with thrills and spills.

Sadly, Michael Mann‘s latest fails to have the required missing link to make the whole composition work.

The Premise

It is clear that Mann‘s vision of Blackhat was to create a central character that pairs the traits of a hacker with one of a lean, mean secret agent figure (in the vein of a James Bond, as the case may be). Chris Hemsworth stars as Nick Hathaway, the embodiment of the “white hat hacker” mythos – or quite simply, the good guy of our tale. Obviously, Hathaway’s been out of the business for way too long, so we now see him as a rugged, muscle-bound convict, doing bench presses and pull-ups in order to impose on the audience how much of a badass he is.

Anyway, he’s been called into action again by the CIA through his former colleague Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) to track down a syndicate full of cyber terrorists (the “blackhat hackers“) responsible for plunging the world into an economic collapse. As a result of this, Hathaway quickly finds himself pitting his wits against an elusive adversary in a cat-and-mouse game across countries, where his life and his love interest, Dawai’s sister Chen Lien (Wei Tang), are mired in such danger that it permeates beyond the virtual world.

The Plot Override

It’s not rocket science that in a film that primarily talks about cybercrime, you would expect to see it actually play out as the central plot device. For starters, Blackhat cannot deflect itself from being a marketing bait that the higher echelons of Universal threw into the sea, desperately praying for a big catch in the trail of its buzzworthy wake. But it’s also the reason that we wanted to see Blackhat in the first place.

Yet, cybercrime only serves as a mere subplot woven into a spiderlike web of cramped cross-overs between far too many genres, which flows so unevenly that you could not possibly quite get a clear picture of it. Also, some parts are off, like Hathaway’s encounter with the “blackhats” (or more fittingly “crime ring“) that from their first meetings to the final showdown plays out more like a brotherhood gang fight than a battle of wits between hackers. Or there is the steamy romance between Hathaway and Lien that the film tries to generate, yet is so underdeveloped that our assessment of their connection is one more out of pleasure than love.

While the cinema always welcomes diversity in one’s work, Blackhat is the exception where all you want is just to strap yourself on the cinema seat and relish all the action-packed chaos unfolding in front of your eyes. Nothing more, and certainly, nothing less.

Third time, less charm

When you thought it couldn’t get worse, the action sequences in Blackhat manage to crash and burn to a degree even lower than “nothing less.” Considering how Michael Mann kicks the film off in pulsating fashion with a nuclear reactor sequence that comprises of snazzy CGI of cyberspace and cool intercuts between our villain (visible except his face) in action. When the much-awaited action hero Hathaway finally gets his chance to shine, that essence you expect to soar into an unbelievable high from his every move ebbs away into a string of rehashed stunts from Mann’s past classics.

While it is true that the blueprint of Mann‘s best works come from the fusion of shoot-em-up thrills and jerky steadicam movements in films such as Heat and Collateral, the result could not feel as out of place as it is in 2015 when it reappears in tired fashion somewhere in the second act of Blackhat.

Thor’s Weakness: Computers!

Last but not least, the joint failure gets a third strike from its acting. Hate to be harsh, but Chris Hemsworth must shoulder the heft of the blame. Personally, I love his natural portrayal of the hammer-wielding superhero Thor and also his non-Thor role in Rush, and in terms of seeing him perform physical combat, his sleek movements and tough-guy look are able to encapsulate the action hero trait of Nick Hathaway. Still, even the power of Thor’s hammer could do little to fix up the fact that the Englishman is a terrible casting choice when he assumes his day-job role.

Spoon-fed with stilted dialogues, Hemsworth‘s lack of conviction as the hacker Hathaway was so clear to see, that if you hand him a choice between a heavy rifle or a piece of laptop you trust him to hold onto, you would hope for the former. His co-star Wei Tang didn’t fare too well either as Hathaway’s flame Lien. While the narrative tries to characterize Hathaway and Lien’s relationship as the modern, multiracial version of Bonnie and Clyde, it never gets to the point that we truly believe it. As much as Wei Tang wanted to be the Asian Faye Dunaway, her character ended up as dull as Denise Richards‘s Bond girl portrayal in The World is not Enough.

Negative points aside, Leehom Wang did much better than his co-stars. At the very least, he looked more the part of a hacker who really knows his way around computers. While his screentime is tragically brief, he brings the best out of Hemsworth when they share a scene together. Also, Viola Davis as CIA agent Carol Barrett and Holt McCallany as her partner Jessup are a fresh addition to the internationally-crowded cast.

Conclusion

For once, people can fantasize of a hacker makeover, from someone so epitomized as a slovenly man-child and tomorrow, a bad-ass, hunky chick magnet. Blackhat had the potential to make dreams come true for a chunk of two hours. For those unprepared, though, get ready to have your dream squished. Chris Hemsworth gets the action hero bearing right, but he is a clear misrepresentation to the hackers community. Add to that a narrative that’s lost at sea, and Blackhat compounds to a very unpleasant watch.

So, what did you think of Blackhat? Let us know in the comments!

(top image source: Universal Pictures)