Movie Review: Blackhat (Rated R)

Universal Pictures(NEW YORK) — Making a movie is hard work. Making an entertaining and beautiful-looking movie about hacking is even harder.

For director Michael Mann and Blackhat, one out of two ain’t bad.

The term “blackhat” is apparently reserved for hackers whose intent is to inflict damage, rather than just cause mischief. The hackers in Mann’s movie damage a Chinese nuclear power plant, mess with the commodities market, and command a small cell of badass, ruthless militants. Perhaps blackhat is too nice a term to describe the entity behind this plot. 

In order to figure out who attacked their power plant, MIT-trained Chinese cyber agent Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) convinces his reluctant superiors he must work with the FBI.  Here at home, FBI agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis) also has to convince her boss that working with Chen is the right thing to do. 

Almost immediately, the plan seems a mistake when Chen asks Barrett and company to release imprisoned convicted hacker Nicholas Hathaway (played by Thor — I mean, Chris Hemsworth) because he’s the only person in the world who can help. How does Chen know?  They attended MIT together.

We meet Hathaway during a somewhat ham-fisted sequence designed to let us know he’s an incarcerated, buff, disciplined genius. He’ll capitulate to prison guards, despite knowing they’re about to throttle him, then throw passive-aggressive verbal darts while being interrogated by the warden for what really amounts to some silly exposition. Then back in his cell, he does pushups with his hands on the floor and his feet overhead, resting against the wall at a 70-degree angle.

Chen has a sister, Lien Chen (Wei Tang), who seems to “get” Hathaway. She’s also gorgeous and, like her brother, is a computer genius, and the only other person Chen trusts to help him find the hackers.

I know very little about computer programming or hacking but, based on interviews with Mann, it took a lot of time, research and effort to get the computer code we see on-screen to look as authentic as possible. But unless you’re a programmer or a hacker, watching computer code during an action thriller is about as exciting as, well, watching computer code during an action thriller. Likewise, Mann devotes a lot of focus to the movie’s look and musical score, but seems to focus less on the on-screen relationships between his actors. 

Hemsworth, once again, proves he’s a lot more than Thor, but the language barrier made his scenes with Tang awkward.  It’s obvious Tang’s English is limited.  While it doesn’t diminish her acting ability, the strongest moments between Tang and Hemsworth are when they’re not talking. I also kept thinking, “This movie would be so much more compelling if Viola Davis was the lead.” No actress brings more gravitas to a role than Davis, and that includes Meryl Streep.

Blackhat is suffused with Michael Mann’s gritty cinematic aesthetic.  It also has a serious pacing issue. The meat of the story takes too long to develop and by the time it does, I found myself too detached to really care about the outcome.

Two-and-a-half out of five stars.

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