Antitrust
**
Cinema
Releases - May 4, 2001
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12. 108
minutes. Directed by Peter Howitt. Written by Howard Franklin. Starring Ryan
Phillippe, Tim Robbins, Claire Forlani, Rachel Leigh
Cook.
"Antitrust" is a shallow retread
of "The Firm" set in a computer company rather than a law practice. Ryan
Phillippe plays Milo, a talented programmer who sells out and joins the big
boys at NURV, a huge Portland corporation with magical new software that
will link every communications device on the planet. Milo smells a rat almost
as soon as he gets to the company, and discovers that his bosses are murdering
young programmers and stealing their ideas. The thriller wheels are set in
motion.
Tim Robbins plays the president of NURV, a guy
named Gary Winston who looks less like a billionaire than a comfortable geek,
and is being investigated by Congress for breach of monopoly laws. Sound
familiar? Roger Ebert says in his review "I'm surprised they didn't protect
against libel by having the villain wear a name tag saying, 'Hi! I'm not
Bill!'" I could not have put it better myself. The movie paints Winston so
darkly that it could be considered a low-blow attack on Bill Gates; unfair,
perhaps, as there is no evidence that Gates is a murderer or thief, but also
permissible and even somewhat amusing, as Gates is a decent punching-bag
symbol of corporate oppression.
This is one helluva silly film, though. The
machinations of the story get extraordinarily farfetched, and the movie clues
us in on all its twists, reveals them as if they're shocks, then explains
them in unnecessarily hyperactive montages which piece things together through
snatches of previous ominous dialogue and dizzying camera effects. "The Simpsons"
has parodied realisation sequences more subtly, and "Sesame Street" spells
things out less obviously.
"Antitrust" is generally well-acted and easy to
watch, but it's too paranoid, too obvious, too clichéd and too
over-the-top. It's one of those movies where we leave reflecting that although
we weren't bored, we weren't very interested either, and we found it all
a bit goofy.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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