Blackhat

Computers have rarely fared well in the world of cinema. They are, by nature, inert objects and — at least when you get down to the technical jargon — esoteric ones, too. The lingo often comes across as goofy or just plain wrong, while there’s not much action to be squeezed out of some dude sitting behind a keyboard. Unless a metaphysical approach — like The Matrix (1999) — is taken, the best you can probably hope for is Hackers (1995), which isn’t a good movie by any means but is at least awash in enough ’90s cheese and cyberpunk nonsense to be a curio. Neither approach is what anyone would call realistic, because realistic is just not engaging.

This hasn’t stopped Michael Mann from giving it a shot with Blackhat. Set in a realistic, post-9/11 world, Mann’s approach is to take a mix of police procedure and cyberterrorist paranoia and plop a convoluted action picture on top of it. The plot itself is incredibly simple — a convicted hacker (Chris Hemsworth) is freed from prison to hunt down an international terrorist hacker — but layered in globe-trotting and plot twists. The idea, I suppose, is that — in between the gunfights and fisticuffs — no one will notice this is really just another movie about, well, dudes sitting behind keyboards. That’s admirable in theory, since the purpose of movies is ultimately to entertain, but the approach still comes across as goofy, uneven and filled with the kind of parlance that never sounds cool in this medium.

There’s also the sense — because Blackhat’s trading in topicality — that this is a very serious effort from Mann. This is a very straight-faced film — a pity, since it’s inherently a very corny one. Put together, Blackhat is completely lacking in self-awareness. Here’s a movie where Hemsworth — best known for playing the Norse god Thor — is supposed to be a brilliant hacker. Hemsworth plays the role like this is finally his chance to be taken seriously as an actor, since his brow is constantly furrowed and he mumbles a lot. What it comes down to is that I can buy him as a mythological Norse god, but a computer genius is stretching credulity. It’s not all his fault, though. No one could make dialogue like “It’s not about code! It’s not about ones and zeros!” sound like the realistic utterances of a functional adult male.

But beyond simple miscasting, the flaws the film carries are numerous, and while none of them are egregious, they do gradually pile up. There’s the usual grainy, drab Mann visual style, full of needless handheld work and close-ups; there’s the convoluted nature of the plot, the laughable nature of the films twists (the gang of bad guys who pop up out of nowhere with a bazooka is truly magical) and climax — it all feels second rate. And the idea that this is a movie where no one can crack a joke just compounds how full of itself Blackhat can be. Mann yearns for this to be a serious film but still has those movie computers that beep when someone scrolls through a window. Even beyond this, there are foundational problems with the script. There’s so much time spent turning the wheels to catch the evil mastermind, and it’s just some nondescript guy with a keyboard after money. As malevolent geniuses go, he’s pretty boring (what happened to the Dr. Mabuses of the world?) and a perfect example of the level of creativity the movie’s operating on. Rated R for violence and some language.