Directed by:
Michael MannScreenplay:
Morgan Davis FoehlCinematography:
Stuart DryburghCast:
Chris Hemsworth, Leehom Wang, Wei Tang, Viola Davis, Holt McCallany, Andy Tien, Ritchie Coster, Christian Borle, John Ortiz, Yorick van Wageningen (more)VOD (4)
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Set within the world of global cybercrime, Legendary's Blackhat follows a furloughed convict and his American and Chinese partners as they hunt a high-level cybercrime network from Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Jakarta. (Universal Pictures UK)
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Reviews (9)
It's neither a high-end love story, nor the 1930s with digital camera, but it still has a lot of trademarks that you either love or don't know about Michael Mann. There are directors who will never succeed at this, there are those who can precisely grasp the moment when the world needs it and rewrite trends (The Matrix), and there are even those who are called pioneers and lay the foundations of what we will appreciate in cinemas years later, the ones who surpassed in what and how they express their times and generation in film. Michael Mann is such a director. He was in the 1990s, the 2000s, and the 2010s. He is always one step ahead and his films are rated higher with the passage of time.
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Mann has still got it six years later. To see how skillfully he wields the narrative language, taking shortcuts at important moments while taking the time to develop the personal levels of the characters, is simply a joy. It's too bad that the script is one of those where the filmmaker was either pushed to the wall or squandered his potential himself. The surprising civility and moderation, where hacking isn't done by hanging ten monitors around the protagonist (wave to Swordfish), is brought down by the totally watered-down second half where interest in anything (and yet the build-up to the hard-hitting finale is there) wanes. This isn’t even fixed by the uncompromising twist (Mann has always been able to be quite inhumane to his supporting characters), and despite the fact that even though we've seen this sort of "walking" finale from Mann before, he still manages to film it in such a way that it has the right kind of gradation. [Hemsworth is likable and he puts the effort in, but this typecasting is the major casting failure of the year and I didn't buy it for even a second.]
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The weakest screenplay that Mann ever filmed. It’s not downright bad, just not thought out well enough and in places pretty hollow. Old man Mike doesn’t know his way around the environment where he finds himself and so he can’t make it any better. So Blackhat works excellently as a story about an ex-con trying to acclimatize himself in the world (represented in glorious locations), but he is a bit dumb during the actual search for the hacker. On the other hand, isolated moments are filmed absolutely brilliantly, i.e. the textbook bank hack - revealing a rift in quality, which is unfortunate because with a crew of this caliber he could have worked wonders. Blackhat is maybe the best movie about hackers, but it reduces its watchability when it describes what the hacking involves. Other aspects work absolutely without any problem, sweet shootouts, chilling, fatal decisions. That’s why I like Mann’s movies, and they’re still going strong. In one scene he shocks you just like old times. The acting team is super, Hemsworth comes across like somebody who understands his trade and finds no problem in getting over the fact that he looks like a model/lumberjack and the romantic storyline with Wei Tang often surfaces throughout the movie. Probably a similar “fail" as Miami Vice, apart from the fact that due to the screenplay Blackhat can’t shine with the same absolute realism.
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No way. Even for me it was incredibly long and lacked any suspense. Mann showcased his strength in the action scenes, which were truly well-shot, but they were rare. It’s an action thriller, or at least a thriller, and I was incredibly bored by it. This is what happens when someone wants to be modern at any cost.
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The overall concept is more than interesting, but the slow narrative style doesn't add much to the film. 132 minutes is too much for a film where not much happens. On the other hand, the uncompromising and intelligent main character, who has computers in his sights, is certainly cool, but I expected more IT gadgets, but that is made up for by the surprisingly very good action!! The film features only four action scenes, but they are very high quality. The very first action scene in the bar, is so uncompromising, hard, with perfect sound design, that you will want to watch it at least once again (the cadence of the punches is still ringing in my ears now, I thought, what, this is not a Korean film?!! ), but you will also enjoy the various shootouts, which are very realistically and authentically filmed, watching them you feel like you are watching news footage, and my jaw dropped at the end. Michael Mann really delivers and shows us a Chris Hemsworth more pissed off than ever, and that scene with the screwdriver and knife reminded me of the final fatality from The Raid 2, so in terms of action, I'm very satisfied, it's just a shame there wasn't more of it. 65%.
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