Review #1,069: 'Blackhat' (2015)

With every aspect of our life now so tightly intertwined with the digital world, criminals in the action thriller genre, or at least the clever ones, no longer burst into banks guns a-blazing to steal their cash, but sit behind a desk and tap buttons on their keyboards. Film-makers now face the task of making such a dull activity exciting, and you would assume that if anyone can make nervous glances at a computer screen filled with coding babble at least interesting, it would be Michael Mann. Sadly, Mann has been on a drastic downward spiral ever since Miami Vice (2006) and continues this trend with Blackhat, an incredibly dull movie that died a painful death at the box office.

After a mysterious hacker causes coolant pumps to overheat and explode at a nuclear plant in China, Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang), a military officer in the cyber warfare unit, is assigned to find the culprit. He discovers that a Remote Access Tool (RAT) was used in the attack, and that the coding was created by himself and his former college roommate, Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), now serving a length prison sentence for an unrelated hack. Striking a deal with FBI agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis) to release Hathaway in exchange for his assistance and expertise, their investigations lead them to Hong Kong, Jakarta and Malaysia in search of the elusive cyber criminal.

For years, Mann delivered some of the coolest films in cinema, effortlessly blending a steely-blue palette with a heightened sense of realism and backed by some memorable, intense scores. Ever since Collateral (2004), he's shot digitally, allowing the rough grain of the picture to complement a beautiful aesthetic. He does the same here, succeeding in finding interesting way to frame his characters, who are usually staring anxiously at a computer screen and talking about things I barely understood. That isn't a criticism - I've read that real-life hackers have hailed Blackhat as the most realistic depiction of their world yet - and I would much rather be immersed in a jargon-heavy world than have everything explained to me in clunky scenes of exposition.

The main issue with Blackhat is that it's utterly preposterous, while having the audacity to be somehow incredibly dull at the same time. Characters portrayed as possessing high intelligence repeatedly do stupid things and make inexplicable decisions (Hathaway at one point finds himself with millions in his bank account, yet chooses to take a clumsily hidden screwdriver to a potentially life-threatening situation rather than simply buying a gun). As much as I like Hemsworth, his leading man potential is dubious, with a string of flops now in his wake outside of his appearances as Thor. Here he makes for an unconvincing tech-genius, and the inclusion of Dawai's sister Lien (Wei Tang) seems to be little more than an excuse for Hemsworth to repeatedly flash his abs. With classics such as Manhunter (1986), Heat (1995) and The Insider (1999) under his belt, Mann should simply quite while he's still ahead, as much as it pains me to say it.


Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Leehom Wang, Wei Tang, Viola Davis, Holt McCallany
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie