LeonLouisRicci A Movie made by Hacks and it Shows. Pretty-Boy Ryan Phillippe is Miscast as a Geek Computer Genius and is Blown Off the Screen anytime He Shares a Scene with Tim Robbins, a Grotesquely Exaggerated "Bill Gates" Type.Forced Melodramatics and a TV Tone, this Film Flopped, not because it didn't Ask some Timely Questions, but because it is just a Bad Movie. Not an Awful Movie but in Total, Pretty Bad.Nothing seems Believable, everything is Overdone, the Acting is Atrocious (except Robbins), the Writing is Bland and Boring, and most of the Action and Suspense takes place on a Computer Screen or a Keyboard, and a Half-Second after the Movie was Released it was Technologically Dated.Glaring Corporated Product Placement is Hypocritical Hubris and works Against the Anti-Corporate Message, and On and On. Bordering on Silly, Nothing much Resonates in the Heavy Scenario and the Ending is Predictable Fluff. Not as Bad as "The Net" (1995) as these things go. But Barely Achieves Average or Worth a Watch Status. Recommended but only as a Snapshot for what passed for Hollywood's Lack of Insight on the Subject and some "Real Life" Headline Grabbing from the Early 2000's.

Robert J. Maxwell Milo Hoffman belongs to a handful of computer wizards, recently graduated from Stanford. Boy, is he smart. And the group of youngsters in their garage are happy, proud, and independent. But Milo is called up to the offices and home of Gary Winston, played by Tim Robbins. Winston is obviously a Bill Gates figure. He even looks a little like him. And he's a genius at innovation, marketing, and quashing the competition.Well, Hoffman is gathered up in "the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death", as represented by the fake idealism, quietly expansive personality, and enormous wealth of Winston. Hoffman parts with his friends in the garage and takes his girl friend to live with him in a finely appointed home.His poor friends, in their ripped jeans and trainers, gradually lose touch except for Teddy Chin, a nice Chinese kid. But their infrequent conversations are limited because they are now adversaries in the world of business. These two, who had worked together happily, are now reduced to shading their accomplishments from one another.Not that it matters much because, when Chin announces he's found some kind of arcane technological breakthrough, he's promptly and brutally murdered. Hoffman, in his grief, is consoled by two women -- his pur-sang girl friend (Cook) and the sexy mole sent to keep an eye on him by Winston. The sexy mole is Claire Forlani. I've given her a lot of thought and decided that her exquisitely Saurian features and flawless figure are such that she can come and spy on me anytime she wants.In one of his last conversations, old friend Teddy Chin told someone that his breakthrough, of great commercial value, was in discovering that the problem was not in the staff but in the band -- or the other way around, I forget. It's all part of a worldwide communications scheme being developed by Winston, called Synapse or Sinovia or Synchronomia or something. I forget that too. It doesn't matter. Hoffman hears from a friend about Teddy's discovery. Later, Winston calls him aside and informs him that the problem with the Dodecahedral Myoneural Plate "lies not in the staff but in the band" -- Chin's exact words! Uh-oh.If you enjoyed "The Firm" with Tom Cruise as the dupe and Daryl Hannah as the company mole, you should enjoy this movie because the plot is very similar indeed, although of course computers are sexier than the law. I mean, after all, you can find Paris Hilton performing tricks on the internet. Can you find that in a stuffy book like "Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England"? No. No, you cannot.Bill Gates isn't really an evil guy, of course, but he's a fascinating one. He's the richest man in America, his income amounting to something more than $150 per second. That's a lot of money. It means that if, for instance, he was walking into his office and saw a one hundred dollar bill lying on the floor it wouldn't be worth his time to stoop down and pick it up.I think I may have nodded out towards the climax of this moral tale because I can't remember that, either. My intermediate term memory may be going. Maybe I spend too much time on the computer. I've had adumbrations of carpal tunnel syndrome lately too. There goes my left pinky now.

leplatypus This is a failed techno-thriller because the techno part is dumb while the thriller is better.Now that computers have become ordinary things, the simplistic "wargames" can't be repeated and the hacking has become more daunting. But the movie can't explain what it's about: what's Nurv? Why is-it so powerful? What does it achieve? At the end, I still don't know so I can't relate to the movie: I see people working, thinking but I don't understand anything.On the other hand, the thriller is well done with the character becoming more and more paranoiac.Thus, I help this movie with a little "4" vote instead of an awful "1" just because of the turn of events and the good cast (even thought a decade later, no one has made a big name!).

betatest-internet-inbox I saw "AntiTrust" (or "Conspiracy.com" for those of us here who are Europeans) on an International flight back to the US when it first came out. I had no idea what it was about, hadn't even heard about it, but the flight was a red eye and I had drank too much coffee. :^) I work in the Industry, so movies like "Hackers" (salami techniques are so "Superman 3/Office Space") and "The Net" (Sandra Bullock just reminds me of a cheaper, less talented hack version of Julia Roberts) never impressed me much in the way that "War Games" had when I was young.Anyhow - I was pleasantly surprised that the writers actually did some research on the subject, the code shown was real, it didn't splash a lot of goofy futuristic computer screens into my face, and NURV reminded me of a smaller dot com I had worked for in Seattle (that has since gone belly up when the dot com bubble burst). I also worked at Microsoft around the time AntiTrust came out, so NURV's campus environment wasn't too far off for 2001.Yeah - it had a lot of Microsoft/Gates bashing in it. Gary Winston was a Bill Gates clone. But overall, I found the acting to be fine (not weak like some have stated). Don Davis did a heck of a job on the soundtrack (I listen to the audio CD when I code every once in awhile now). Most of it I could believe (as far as a movie goes) - the industrial espionage, the monopoly, the do anything to achieve your goals up to and including murder.If I had one bone to pick about the movie, it would be all the unbelievable "fiber optic, fish-eye cameras" that NURV used to spy on non-NURV coders. Of course, in 2001, "spyware" wasn't as much of an issue (wasn't even a household term) as it is today. If AntiTrust was released today - spyware and OS vulnerabilities would have been NURV's back door to those programmers' systems.Too many people look at movies like AntiTrust and pick apart them apart because of they don't portray the Industry realistically. Okay, but let's face it, the IT Industry 99% of the time is boring 8 to 5 drudge work. No more exciting that watching paint dry or ice cubes melt. And no one will go see a movie like that. I liked this movie for its entertainment value, if I wanted a movie that accurately portrays the IT Industry ... I'll just go to work in real life.