A hacker is freed from prison to help find the man responsible for a series
of cyber attacks.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Wei Tang, Leehom Wang
Should an encyclopedia of great movies involving hackers ever be published
it will probably be roughly as thick as a volume on great Italian war
victories. There's something inherently uncinematic about the world of cyber
crime, chiefly because its protagonists spend their time tapping away at
keyboards while chowing down fistfuls of Cheetos, guzzling Mountain Dew from
one bottle while urinating into another empty bottle. Thankfully
Michael Mann is as concerned with realism as the Dardenne brothers
are with car chases; hacking is simply a macguffin to wind a loose plot
around while Mann gets on with doing what he does best, delivering slick
thrills in his own trademark manner.
Blackhat appears to start on shaky ground as Mann delivers
an elaborate visualisation of code infiltrating a computer network like
water filling a reservoir. At first glance it seems Mann is yet another out
of touch filmmaker struggling to get down with the kids, as he appears to be
taking his visual cues from Tron. It's only as the film develops, and we learn the exact details of the
villain's evil plan, that Mann's visual motif here makes perfect sense,
making physical the threat posed by cyber criminals. Mann 1 Cynics 0.
The malicious code causes a meltdown at a Chinese power plant. Unable to
retrieve the hard drives from the plant due to contamination, Chinese agent
Dawai (Leehom Wang) is forced to work alongside FBI agent Carol (Viola Davis), whose team have gotten hold of code used in a similar attack on the
prices of Soy stocks. At Dawai's insistence, his old college roommate,
hacker Nick (Chris Hemsworth), is sprung from a 15 year sentence for
cyber crimes to assist in taking down the unknown antagonist.
After the disappointments of recent Mann snoozefests (Ali, Miami Vice, Public Enemies), Blackhat finds the Chicago auteur returning to the hyper-realism of his best
work (Thief, Manhunter, LA Takedown) and all the Mann staples are present and correct. We have a protagonist
highly accomplished in his chosen field, grudgingly growing to respect an
antagonist he won't encounter before the final reel; a romantic relationship
placed in jeopardy by the former; and, of course, neon-lit skylines. Lots of
neon-lit skylines. Seriously; LOTS! Hemsworth is frequently framed against
glowing shallow focus backgrounds that suggest he's entered some sort of
Tron-like cyber world, be they pulsing computer monitors, airport departure
boards or Asian tower blocks.
In an age when Hollywood is desperate to attract the family dollar, sexual
tension is something we rarely see in big budget movies today, but
Blackhat is unabashed in that regard. As soon as Hemsworth's hunky hacker and
Wei Tang's sultry cyber sleuth lay eyes on each other they
immediately engage in some heavy eye-undressing, and it's not long before
they're rolling in some metaphorical hay; on top of a skyscraper of course -
with a neon background! This quickly escalating relationship has drawn
guffaws from many critics, but it makes perfect sense to this reviewer.
After all, Hemsworth was voted People magazine's sexiest man alive, and
nobody would kick Tang out of bed for hogging the sheets. Of course these
two are going to get it on!
A cynic might say Blackhat is a parody of a Michael Mann movie, but if you watch any movies that
have attempted to ape his style you'll realise how difficult to replicate it
is. Blackhat is more a case of a filmmaker paying homage to his own past, with
Mann practically rewriting scenes from earlier works (a speech delivered by
Hemsworth about surviving prison time is straight out of Thief). There are a couple of shootouts that are the equal of those in
LA Takedown and its glossy remake Heat, but with an added realism thanks to Mann's use of digital video,
something that hindered his recent films but works perfectly with this
material. With practically everyone shooting on digital now, Hollywood has
caught up with Mann, and with the murkiness of his visuals no longer a
distraction, we can appreciate his stunning compositions, all delivered in
his customary unpretentious throwaway manner (a quick shot involving some
pillars reflected in a pool of water might end up as the most striking
composition of 2015).
Don't be put off by the negative reviews and the film's unpromising cyber
crime plot; as Edward de Bono would point out, that's Black Hat
thinking.
Blackhat is on Amazon Prime Video UK
now.