Review // Blackhat

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The character of the “hacker” has long been relegated to henchman status in Hollywood film. In a Hawaiian print shirt and goofy glasses, they’re normally only around to type quickly on a keyboard then turn to the real villain and spout some generic technical-sounding lingo, “he’s raiding the network!” before spilling soda on their shorts. In a year when hackers actually caused quite the stir in Hollywood, Blackhat seemed like the perfectly timed release to turn the new nemesis into a truly menacing onscreen presence.

Enter Michael Mann, the steady-handed action director behind classics like Heat and The Insider. Mann’s Blackhat is a globe hopping adventure tale of convicted hacker Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) released from prison and given the chance to earn his freedom by helping American and Chinese intelligence hunt down an anonymous cyber criminal targeting major institutions. Beginning with a nuclear meltdown in China, followed quickly by an attack on the American stock market, the faceless enemy clearly has an agenda, but it’s up to our intrepid Hathaway to figure it out.

Assisting Hathaway in his quest are brother and sister duo Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) and Lien Chen (Wei Tang). A former MIT roommate of Hathaway’s, Chen is now a high-ranking official in the PRC military. Caught between the suspicious American intelligence agents and his own rigid commanders, Chen does all he can to find the faceless attacker and help Hathaway earn his freedom. Wei is Chen’s pretty sister…and is around for some reason. Representing the American side are FBI agents Carol Barrett (Viola Davis) and Gary Baker (Spencer Garrett), who are tasked with keeping an eye over Hathaway but basically just defer to him whenever something comes up that an FBI agent should know.

While he’s still a master when it comes to exchanges of automatic weapons fire, Mann’s propensity for slowed down shots of his characters gazing across expanses of pavement while their hair blows in the wind gets a little tiresome…

Now it’s wrong to assume there aren’t hackers that look like Chris Hemsworth, but it still feels strange watching the muscle bound Aussie – best known for playing a god – sit in front of a computer and pretend to type (I kept feeling like he should punch it). Mann seems to recognize this wasted potential and he makes sure to give Hathaway plenty of other things to do, like get in gun fights, rush into barely stable nuclear reactors, and seduce Lien…you know, the normal stuff that prisoners on conditional release are allowed to do.

As the film unfolds the devious plans of our cyber super-villain come to light. The villainous scheme is so over-complicated it feels like it belongs in a Bond film, and in a way it represents the problem with the hacker film. In the real world all these villainous deeds are likely accomplished sitting in a comfy chair in front of a computer. In the cinema world, hackers work towards large, complex set-pieces.

Mann does an able job keeping things moving, but too often relies on shaky out-of-focus camera work to give things a sense of urgency (Jason Bourne this ain’t). While he’s still a master when it comes to exchanges of automatic weapons fire, Mann’s propensity for slowed down shots of his characters gazing across expanses of pavement while their hair blows in the wind gets a little tiresome, and the whole thing starts to feel like a commercial for expensive watches.

He’s not helped by the fact that Chris Hemsworth can barely maintain an American accent throughout, and any “romance” scene between Hathaway and Lien Chen grinds the entire film to a screeching halt. Add in the groan-inducing sequences of the camera swooping through the innards of a computer that we’ve seen a million times before and you’ve got another failed attempt at bringing hacking to the big screen. Hit control, alt, delete, and try again.

Reviewed by Evan Arppe.