Movie Review: Blackhat (2014)

FULL DISCLOSURE: In October 2013, I was paid a couple of hundred Malaysian Ringgit to stand around a bank in Kuala Lumpur as an extra on some cyber-crime thriller called Cyber. After 6 hours, myself and over 100 others were shepherded onto a trading floor and directed to act out a financial crash. In January 2015, the movie was released, only now it’s title was Blackhat.

Hopefully you’ll find my experience hasn’t coloured my review.

Hacking is dull, at least in film. Hours of typing away at keyboards, programming tools and researching code that all lead up to a press of the “Enter” key that results in… well nothing much, at least cinematically. Films like Swordfish or, of course, Hackers try to glamorize hacking somewhat with funky screensavers (has Hugh Jackman never heard of extended desktops?) or flashy visualizations of cyberspace and the effects that the hacks have. Michael Mann’s (Heat, Miami Vice, Collateral) Blackhat initially uses some of these tics , as well as some of the directors own, but eventually settles down into a sometimes exciting, but ultimately standard, spy thriller template.

After a nuclear reactor in China suffers a catastrophic explosion caused by a failure in its turbines, the investigation by the authorities reveals the Remote Access Tool (RAT) used to deliver a virus that caused the incident had been co-written by the lead investigator Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) and his old college roommate, Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth). Evaluating changes made to the RAT by the hacker, with Hathaway, would help Chen find out more about the culprit, a task somewhat complicated by the fact that Hathaway is languishing in a US prison for “blackhat” hacking crimes.

After some somewhat dreary to-ing and fro-ing, a “dream team” is assembled to take down the hacker. Consisting of Chen, Hathaway, Lien (Chen’s sister, played by Wei Tang), a talented computer engineer in her own right, and two US agents, played by Viola Davis and John Ortiz, who are all chasing up leads around Asia, from Hong Kong to Malaysia and on to Jakarta.

After some vertigo inducing zoom ins on CPUs, the circuit boards and silicon that they consist of, Blackhat continues in a mostly disjointed manner, with characters and scenes introduced choppily and some distracting camera work and editing that prevents the viewer of settling into the movie until some alarming action scenes later on. An initial visit to the stricken Chinese nuclear reactor provides a particularly egregious example, sticking out like a sore thumb with no seeming connection to the scenes proceeding or following it. This comes off like one of those scenes spliced into recent blockbusters with Chinese actors in an attempt to court the huge Chinese market. This is something you would not expect from a director of  Mann’s stature.

Only when the team starts to get close to their quarry, and his well armed henchmen, does the film seem to find its feet, with the storyline and editing seeming to relax. However, by this stage, the sins of the first half may have killed off any interest in the second half. Which is a shame because, when the action does happen, it is brutally effective. The minimal soundtrack drops away and the heavy thuds of bullets ripping through shipping containers, cars, and flesh form an assault on the ears. Even in the hand-to-hand encounters, Mann pulls no punches as he seems to try and out-Bourne Jason Bourne by bringing the camera in close and highlighting every bone crunch and cranial impact. It’s just a shame the rest of the film doesn’t display the same level of focus.

As a computer engineer, it’s nice to note that the tech is depicted mostly realistically… for once. Hemsworth even asks for an Android phone at one point to trace a short range blue tooth signal , something that I’ve learned can be a lot more difficult on an iPhone, although someone probably should have told the team NOT to stare through the window at a nuclear reactor that’s approaching critical.

Those issues with the initial pacing and editing, along with mostly flat characters, a barely there love story sub plot, and low-key ending condemn the film as being not one of Mann’s best. While similarly plotted thrillers might reveal a big name actor in the role of protagonist, something Mann himself did when he cast Cruise, DeNiro or Pacino, here the big reveal inspires only indifference, leaving not much pay off for the final, well executed action set piece during a packed Indonesian festival.

It’s doubtful that Blackhat will join the ranks of Collateral, Heat, or even Miami Vice in the collections of movie buffs and “Mann Fans” everywhere.

As for my moment of fame and glory on the silver screen? After the whole 11 hour experience, 8 hours waiting around and 3 hours shooting, the scene in question, a run on the Chicago stock exchange, lasts about 30 seconds in the final film. I didn’t spot myself, but I’ll still buy a copy of the DVD to go through frame by frame, looking for evidence of my brush with “The Mann”.