ब्लैकहैट

If I had to pay to see this movie when I saw it, I'd be so mad, but I didn't, so I was disappointed for free. Chris Hemsworth and Voila Davis are so much MORE than the crappy roles they were given for this film. The storyline was all over the place; there are too many side stories to keep up with. The overall concept of the film is fun and interesting, but its execution is very poor. There's light at the end of the tunnel during a few scenes, and the attention of the audience is kept somehow by a very thin thread. In the end, it's pure curiosity that'll keep you from walking out on the movie altogether. In the hands of a different writer and director, this film would've been great. I suggest waiting for it to be available on Redbox instead of seeing it in the theater.

I waited a long time watching this movie because of all the bad summaries and ratings, but, here is my opinion. - Blackhat is an entertaining movie with an interesting visual language and I was really surprised how "not that bad" it is. Yeah sure, it doesn't have the dept of a Heat or Aviator, but it is still a solid peace - I Have a feeling that a lot of the people didn't understand Manns intentions in terms of camera, picture language and dramaturgy. The same thing happened with Miami vice! - My advice, watch it and form your own opinion and do not make the same mistake as me not watching it due to the opinion of others.

This film currently has an undeservedly low rating here on IMDb so it was with a bit of apprehension that I sat down to watch it and it proved to be much better than I had expected. The reason for the low rating I think is that the audiences today got too used to dumb 'action packed' crap like Taken that consists of little more than clichés and boring camera work. This movie dares to be different, it dares to be slow paced, watching it is like reading a book, it actually requires a mental effort on the part of the viewer to keep track of what's going on and naturally people these days don't like that. This film is from a different epoch, it's just too big and too multi-layered for the short attention span of the modern viewer weaned on vine videos. If you want to get an idea of what this movie is like without spoilers - think Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Don't be discouraged by the low rating, it's just that slow-burn thrillers are not everyone's cup of tea these days.

It should also be noted that it's not just in its approach to story telling that this film dares to be different it's also in its cinematography. Once again, it feels like a film from a different time period that hearkens back to the classic noir movies of yesteryear, something like Three Days of the Condor.

And last but not least, it's quite refreshing to have a main character that thinks ahead rather than simply barging in and relying solely on the script writers to help him prevail in whatever situation they may find themselves in.

I must say when I watched the trailer for this movie I was skeptical, there are only a few hacker- movies that are enjoyable to watch.

Sometimes I am wrong and the movie turns out to be better then I expected but not in this case. I actually got quite annoyed watching this. The computer action looked authentic by using existing OS-es and interfaces but they still made huge mistakes. IP's with numbers higher than 255 is just plain stupid and accessing a top-secret NSA program with some simple social engineering looked convincing on screen but I doubt the NSA allows simple user/pass access to such tooling. I could go on and on...

I did like the idea of the plot, too bad the execution was so terrible. Probably the only thing I really liked where the two big shootout scenes, you saw a bit of Heat's director Mann there:)

Unsynced audio and weird changes in volume where also very annoying, something you don't expect from a $70mil movie.

I'm giving this a +1 because it tried to be authentic so a 4 bumps up to a 5/10 rating.

'BLACKHAT': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

A cyber-thriller directed by Michael Mann and starring Chris Hemsworth; as an expert hacker who's released from prison early, in order to help the US and Chinese governments stop a malicious hacker terrorist group. The film was also co-produced and co-written by Mann, along with Morgan Davis Foehl. It costars Tang Wei, Leehom Wang, Viola Davis, Holt McCallany, Ritchie Coaster, Yorick van Wageningen and John Ortiz. The movie received mostly negative reviews from critics (with a few notable exceptions) and it was a bomb at the box office, but I really enjoyed it!

After a dangerous hacker group attacks a nuclear plant in Hong Kong, and hacks into the Mercantile Trade Exchange in Chicago, the FBI decides to team up with the Chinese government, in order to stop them. Captain Chen Dawai (Wei) is put in charge of finding the culprits, in China. He suggests to the FBI, that they spring his old friend, Nick Hathaway (Hemsworth), from a 15-year prison sentence; in order to help them. It turns out that Hathaway is an expert computer hacker, and he and Dawai actually wrote the computer code, used in the terrorist attacks, many years earlier. It's a deadly race against time to stop the terrorist group, as Hathaway also bonds with Dawai's sister, Chen Lien (Wang); a networking engineer also assisting Dawai and Hathaway in their mission.

The movie is classic Michael Mann; it reminds me of the gritty action thrillers that Mann, and other stylized directors like him, used to make in the 80s and 90s. It's slick, brutally violent and dumb; just like a lot of great 80s and 90s thrillers (from yesteryear). It's hard to follow, and I don't think the film probably makes a lot of sense anyway, but that doesn't matter; because it's still a lot of fun. Mann is still at the top of his game, in stylish directing, and Hemsworth makes a very engaging, leading man action hero. It's definitely an action film that's worth the time to watch; if you like Michael Mann, you shouldn't be disappointed.

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