Review: Paranoia

Liam Hemsworth and his techie team are given a chance to impress company head Gary Oldman, or be fired. They don’t impress and are promptly fired. Their genius reaction to this? Spend up big on their company credit card before the presumably Alzheimer’s-afflicted Oldman remembers to cancel their cards. After a night of hard partying and a roll in the hay with sexy Amber Heard, Hemsworth, who desperately needs to pay for his Emphysema-suffering dad Richard Dreyfuss’ medical bills, is dragged in by stooge Julian McMahon to see an understandably pissed off Oldman. Oldman now claims that Hemsworth owes him, and uses threats of harm to his techie pals and father as leverage to get Hemsworth to act as a corporate spy against his hated rival, Harrison Ford (!). And who happens to be Ford’s marketing exec? Why, Heard of course. #Awkward, y’all! Embeth Davidtz plays Oldman’s ice queen cohort, and Josh Holloway plays an FBI man.

 

Beware any film from several production companies and about 20 credited producers. Aussie helmer Robert Luketic (“Legally Blonde”, “The Ugly Truth”, “21”, “Killers”) directs this 2013 film with a title that sounds like a 60s junker with a slumming Carrol Baker. It’s actually a technological thriller, and sadly a pretty uninteresting and silly one. I’m not sure the frothy, lightweight Luketic is the right guy for this kind of thing, but direction isn’t really the problem here, nor is acting (Though actual casting is a bit iffy).

 

The main issue is the laughable screenplay by Jason Dean Hall and Barry Levy, from a novel by Joseph Finder. Skulduggery in the smart phone world? Really? And we’re not talking a ‘Big Brother’ kinda thing like the underrated “Enemy of the State”, no this one is trying to make a thriller out of the corporate side of computer/phone technology companies. To use the modern parlance, LOL. Perhaps this film wasn’t really made for me (I don’t even currently own- or want- a mobile phone, let alone a smart one and wouldn’t want a phone ‘that changes the way we live’), but whether this has any basis in reality or not, I found it eye-rolling. Those who think mobile phones are the like most seriously important things ever might get something out of this nonsense, but I just don’t buy Bill Gates as a corporate spy kinda guy. Maybe it happens, but this film didn’t convince me of it, and that’s the key. You’re crazy if you think it happens anything like this.

 

I certainly didn’t buy Harrison Ford (in particular) or Gary Oldman as guys who know how to turn a computer on let alone know how to create smart phone technology. Sure, they can hire people smarter than they are to do the techie stuff, but still…c’mon. Ford used to be a carpenter for cryin’ out loud. And remember “Firewall”? This isn’t any more convincing, even Ford (known for being pretty media shy) clearly knows he can’t sell the idea of him playing a guy who genuinely believes his tech products make peoples’ lives better. He gives a grumpy, uncomfortable performance, an unfortunate trend in the last decade or so. I would’ve cast Patrick Stewart or Dan Aykroyd (Remember his schtick in “Ghostbusters”?), and Jeff Goldblum or Michael Keaton in these two roles instead. On a smaller scale, I found Josh Holloway way too seedy and redneck to convince as an FBI agent.

 

The actors who fare best are the ones who are least miscast; Amber Heard, and yes, Gary Oldman. I know what I just said, believe me. Oldman doesn’t convince as a techie, but as an amoral bastard? Spot on and the most entertaining performance in the film by far. I still say they should’ve cast Keaton or Goldblum, though (Kevin Spacey would’ve been ideal). Heard doesn’t seem like a techie either, and her bogan hairdo is ridiculously inappropriate for an executive (I know it’s called ‘ombre’ or something and it’s supposedly fashionable, but it was around ten years ago too and it wasn’t fashionable then), but if you want an actress to be hot yet aloof, Heard’s your woman. Actually she’s Johnny Depp’s woman and I hate him so much right now. Aussie Liam Hemsworth seems a bit too much of a boofhead (or meathead, if you’re an American) to play a techie, but he’s easily the more interesting and talented of the Hemsworth brothers. OK, so that’s admittedly saying less than nothing, because Chris is appalling, but still, it’s true. He’s OK here, if not terribly interesting or cast to his best advantage, though he’s likeable enough that I might enjoy seeing him in something else. The lovely Embeth Davidtz continues the miscasting as a corporate ice queen (Were Famke Janssen and Eva Green busy?), though her face certainly seems frozen enough. The film shamefully wastes the excellent talents of Richard Dreyfuss in a role that has him asleep for several scenes, and not very well-cast as a blue collar security guard who is about 10 years too old to be Hemsworth’s emphysemic dad. Seriously, who cast this thing?

 

Luketic is lucky that Oldman brings his A-game here (not always a given), slightly miscast or not, because he’s the only entertainment value on show here. No, I didn’t get much out of this one. It’s not convincing, not particularly well-cast, and just not made for me. It’s pretty dopey, really to use smart phone corporate espionage as a big thriller plot, and the totally unrealistic happy ending will make you want to throw something. Possibly a smart phone. Oh, and where was the paranoia? Not anywhere in the film, that’s for sure.

 

Rating: C