Cybercrime and hacking have become front page news. From industrial espionage to real world tragedies, online threats are a frightening new frontier in modern life. This premise should have been putty in the hands of venerated director Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral). His latest effort,Blackhat, resolutely fails in its attempt to be a techno-thriller. It’s a plodding, visually murky snoozer whose plot is completely illogical. The casting is exceedingly poor, with a head-scratching lead performance from Chris Hemsworth. Mann rarely misfires, butBlackhatneeded a lot more coding to be entertaining and believable.
Blackhatopens with a computer virus causing a reactor meltdown at a Chinese nuclear plant. Captain Chen (Leehom Wang) is tasked with finding the culprit. He enlists his software engineer sister (Wei Tang) and travels to the United States to meet with the FBI. Chen convinces the lead agent (Viola Davis) to release his long imprisoned MIT roommate, Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth). The hack into the reactor’s computers used code written by Hathaway before his criminal endeavors caught up to him. All brains and buff, Hathaway and the gang travel back to Asia to uncover the mysterious hacker. They soon realize that the plant attack was the opening salvo in a far deadlier scheme.
Blackhatis literally hard to watch. Mann has become enamored with shooting on digital video. This method worked for his previous films like Collateral and Public Enemies; where the stylistic choice of graininess and washed out colors added thematic weight. Here it’s a poor choice. Coupled with the clunky script, terrible pacing, and mumbled delivery of some actors,Blackhatstrains the audience. The cinematography and lighting needed to be much better in the night scenes.Blackhatis, unfortunately, boring and visually unpleasant.
Chris Hemsworth is miscast in this film. I didn’t buy him as an elite hacker for one second. His attempted American accent is dodgy at best, but the idea of a hacker becoming a kick-ass fighter with a waxed physique in prison is borderline comical. The script by Morgan Davis Foehl has Hemsworth finding clues that ostensibly smart people on the case should have already figured out. Or should be too intelligent to be duped by his tactics.Blackhat’s third act, where the villain is revealed, make no sense. Why would anyone that intelligent go through all of these steps unnecessarily? There is none, but the film needs bullets, explosions, and fisticuffs to make it screen worthy. It’s highly doubtful real hackers are using machine guns and rocket propelled grenades.
Blackhat’s seems to be drawn from reality, where the Stuxnet virus destroyed centrifuges and setback the Iranian nuclear program by years. That story would have been better fictionalized and given the Hollywood treatment.Blackhatis the first disappointing film of 2015. Mann’s a great filmmaker that has delivered a clunker. Hopefully this is an aberration and not the new normal for him.
