Blackhat: Movie Review

Michael Mann is an acclaimed filmmaker, but truth-be-told, I have never been a big fan of his movies. Many will disagree with me, but my favorite directorial effort from Mann, would be 2004’s “Collateral”. Hard to believe that came out more than a decade ago. His latest, the cyber-thriller “Blackhat” is his second worst film, right behind “Miami Vice”. It starts off with a glimmer of hope but then slowly becomes a lot of stupidity involving some supposedly very intelligent characters. I don’t know much about computer hackers, but I just can’t picture them taking out a group of thugs in a restaurant like they were Jason Bourne.

Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) is a convicted hacker who gets a second chance when the government offers him freedom in exchange for aiding in the capture of a dangerous cyber-terrorist. Nicholas must work with FBI special agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis), his former college roommate Captain Chen Dawai (Wang Leehom), and his sister Lien Chen (Wei Tang) , who happens to be a networking engineer. The reason Nicholas is needed, is that he was the architect of the code that is now being used by the criminals. First the Chan Wan Nuclear Power Plant was hacked which cause a massive explosion. Next Wall Street was hacked. Now the team must find the bad guys before they strike again.

The problem with “Blackhat” isn’t that its predictable, it’s that it is never thrilling or fun. There is a serious lack of energy that results in a film that not only goes on way too long, but offers very little in the form of entertainment. I bought Chris Hemsworth as a highly skilled computer hacker about as much as I bought Mark Wahlberg as a college English lit. professor in “The Gambler”. Still, casting is by far the least of Blackhat’s many problems.

By: Marc Ferman