Reação Colateral

Screened this at the Sundance 2008 Festival. This movie actually caught me by surprise, it was very hip and surprisingly Josh Hartnett really brought it. The movie has a modern "Wall Street" type vibe, the story follows Tom (Hartnett) who is a super confident .com entrepreneur who is in crisis mode during the downward spiral of the .com stock bust just before September 2001. Hartnet nails this role with high energy output and makes this a very watchable flick. Austin Chick the director is obviously very talented and throws just the right amount of style and cool music into the film to keep it slick and contemporary which should broaden its appeal past just the Gen-X group. The one downside is that the film gives the other characters so little room to make their presence felt, especially David Bowies character who gets only a few minutes of face time. Other then that the movie really has a nice pace and the ending worked very well when you consider all the superficial things that Americans thought they cared about until Sept 2001, and then realized there are somethings much more important then money and stature.

Film should get some nice play on the indie circuit, though indie folks probably will be hard swayed to pay over for a Hartnett movie. I would reckon that Josh Hartnett will win over some who doubted him with this performance and maybe even get a little award type talk. I know its hard for me to believe either :)

I like this film, takes the viewer into a strange world that had really existed Perhaps I'm too much of an insider to judge this film from a purely objective orientation, but as a quasi refugee of sorts from the dot com frenzy days, "August" does connect on multiple levels.

Sadly, I've met more than my share of "Tom" characters in real life, and for the most part, that entire world has faded away into obscurity. It was a strange time, when the real world seemed evermore like an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Though there might have been some minor glitches in the film, I think overall it captured the essence of that period and its odd collection of characters surprisingly well.

If there is any one film that is a portal into that culture and time, and does so in an entertaining but reasonably accurate way, this would be that film. It certainly deserves notice and the time it takes to watch, which is a lot more than can be said for some other attempts at this genre'.

Perhaps its because i don't really know anything about the stock market and my ignorance in that area relates to how much i enjoyed the film, maybe if i knew anything about stocks i would have enjoyed the film as much as some of the other people who have commented...but i didn't. I am a fan of josh hartnett and thought the acting was good i just don't think he and the rest of the cast had anything to work with. Perhaps if there was more information about there struggling company as well as more general background info i would have spent less time staring blankly at the wall and more time staring at the film.

i wouldn't recommend this film to someone like me who knows nothing about wall street but then again i wouldn't recommend this even if you worked on wall street, without more background i think this film has greatly reduced its target audience which could have been potentially every one to a small percentage.

Good storytelling can either tell you what happens, tell you how it was, or both. Most moviegoers, the superficial ones, watch a movie for the "what happens." They want to meet a character that they like and see something good happen to them with a good in between. And so when they watch a movie they expect a story and they like it or dislike it without considering everything that the movie is trying to do. Don't make that mistake when watching August.

August is a movie that tells a story, a "this is what happened to Tom and his company and his brother and his life", but that is not the REAL of this movie. This movie does a much better job of telling the movie watcher a "this is how it was" than a "this is what happens." So when you watch August, which i think you should, absorb the movie for the parts that elaborate on the environment, the time, place, and attitudes, surrounding August 2001, not just the story or the dialog or the sometimes lack thereof.

It's a movie that tells the story of two brothers that started a dotcom that survived the tech bubble collapse and its story in reality does the job of representing the not so apparent futures of the people left in the dotcom world after its demise.

What is even more enjoyable about the movie than its overall plot, which, like i said, isn't the real story, is Josh Hartnett's character, who not only represents the image of the dotcom-er CEO circa 1999 but also speaks the truly empty rhetoric of the times that feed and fueled the tech bubble for so long. Just listening to his speech and realizing that he's talking about practically nothing but making it sound like he's preaching the new age gospel, the evangelical oratory of the e-generation, in part, produces the statement the movie is trying to make about the times.

So don't watch this movie for the "story" or to "see what happens." Watch this movie with the understanding that its a movie that tries to capture a period in time: its character's and its subplots"/"devices" being either deeper (representing something/someone more generic), or being empty (just a way to kill time or build a character in a way that is unimportant to the "deeper meaning").

Enjoy the movie. Just be aware of what to look out for.

Josh Harnett's portrayal of Tom, a super confident ballsy CEO of an internet start-up who sees it all go wonky is much better than expected.

The film scores even more points for avoiding simple messages and instead turns a captivating tale of an internet start-up bankrolled to the hilt who finds its IPO is going south fast into something richer, a true character study.

The relationships, family, work, ex-girlfriend are all handled with a nice touch of real human values, the conversations (mostly) ring true.

And yes, Bowie is great, if rather brief.

All in all, a real surprise, beautifully shot, and well-crafted, and who knew, Josh Harnett can deliver complex characters...

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