Silk Road: Mercado Clandestino

Silk Road is a story that can not be made up. If there was a smart person who got their hands on this project, this could have been another "Social Network" kind of movie - this was not that - Even from my little knowledge of the true events, half of the time I was like: "This is made up - this did not happen like this" - and if it was fun or better than what actually happened. I would have been fine.

This movie just left more questions unanswered than it actually answered. People who never heard of this story now have to go listen to the podcast to actually find out what happened. I feel like that is not a great thing.

My girlfriend liked it tho and will not care that they skipped a bunch of stuff, so 5/10 - average to great movie!

This took an interesting story and turned it into a made for TV movie, a cornucopia of Hollywood cliches. First , there is the aging copper, dissed by the younger guys for his lack of tech ability,, but all done in such a harsh, over the top way it's not believable . There are multiple scenes with the main cop's little girl , and she and the mom are all boo hoo about him not being around because he works long hours. If it was up to Hollywood writers every pediatric cardiac surgeon would work a 32 hour week and be able to bring his kid to work, and any late cases would just have to wait, cardiac tamponade be damned. They also imply middle class cops should pay 35 k per for pre school. There is the mixed race girl friend, the rich best friend, the rude hispanic boss and the Ivy educated sounding PI. One character is less believable than the next, and the story unfolds in a boring way.

I had never heard of Silk Road until this movie came out. I read up on the actual events and it looks like they left out a bunch of the story. Evidently Ross Ulbricht put out hits on at least six more people. Not to mention, a second agent was arrested, Shaun Bridges, who worked on the same task force and ran an even more lucrative scheme. Each were apparently unaware of the other's illegal activities. Both agents received fairly light sentences. Ulbricht, not so much. He received two life sentences, pretty harsh for someone convicted of a none violent crime. Somehow he still has access to a computer. He posts on Twitter quite frequently.

I wish they had stuck to the original story. The corrupted FBI agent was one narrative and the scammer was another. They just mixed everything up in an over-dramatized & cliched way. I have consumed so much of Ross's story to know this could have been done better.

While the subject matter of this film is certainly intriguing, the execution leaves much to be desired. Rather than focusing on the main protagonist, the film spends an excessive amount of time on a peripheral character, the cop. As a result, the heart of the story is lost, and the film ultimately falls short.

It's disappointing that the filmmakers chose to take a half-fictionalized approach to this topic. The subject matter is weighty and deserves a more serious treatment, perhaps in the form of a documentary. By trying to combine elements of both fiction and non-fiction, the film ends up feeling disjointed and unsatisfying.

Overall, while there are certainly interesting moments in the film, it ultimately fails to do justice to its subject matter. A more focused, documentary-style approach may have been more appropriate for this particular story.