Projet échelon

I saw this beautifully shot film recently.... to be honest I was expecting to watch a good thriller, pass a couple of hours and that's about it. What I discovered was an incredibly fascinating story where, wonder of wonders, I actually felt I was learning something valuable without being preached to...

But the biggest surprise was how moving, honest and sensitive the performances were .... and most of all - how visually stunning the film was.. I was taken on a journey through all the atmospheric 'landscapes', both literal and metaphorical.

Great stuff! A quiet but powerful film. The Listening is undoubtedly one of the best movie surprises of 2006.

The story revolves around NSA's covert global listening espionage system called Echelon. It encompasses absolutely every communication system available, phones, internet, and other position tracking system including your passports and drivers license equipped with smart chips. When they make human implant chips mandatory, I'm sure it will be part of this system to profile your every movement.

The movie's topic is great. It's really a conspiracy theory, that's not a theory but reality. One phone company when asked "How much do you cooperate with NSA in divulging traffic information through your network ?", their answer was "Cooperate ? They're right inside us. They come into our building and set up their surveillance devices within our buildings. Two floors out of our 6 story communication hub is completely taken over by their machines.". The implication is that if your computer is equipped with microphones or cameras, they can use that to monitor your speech, and motion. Ditto for all phone systems. One anti-virus software company was reportedly approached by the NSA to build a backdoor to the software so they can monitor everything that goes on within the computer.

This information can as it is indicated at the end of this movie, bring billions in revenue to corporations working with NSA, and give NSA total tyranny over the world population.

What's even more disturbing is that NSA has no obligation to obtain congressional over site to perform these so called intelligence gathering operation. They basically have carte blanche to do whatever they please.

More movies like this should be made to bring these criminal activities that infringes on privacy, and information that will benefit only the insiders to light.

However, the movie's execution was bit weak, and the story seem to drag on without focus. I wished that they could have done better in this area.

So it's a good movie with intriguing plot, but story could have been better fleshed out.

The premise that almost anything was possible in this movie just goes against all known physics and electronics. In other words it isn't happening, can't happen and isn't going to happen. The most hilarious part of the 'movie' was the over-modulating scene and what happens to the girl - this is totally and completely impossible. Also do you know how much it hurts to get your eardrums blown out and how long that pain lasts especially at high altitude - completely ridiculous movie from start to finish. I suppose the most irritating part was that the movie was unapologetically lumbering and dull. I really find it hard to understand how this made it anywhere, let alone a movie theater.

Those who enjoy Hollywood thrillers, a la the recent Manchurian Candidate, should not be disappointed. Refreshingly we find the US NSA and its American corporate partners in the role of bad guys. The saving grace for the American side is that the hero is a conscientious NSA staff in the role of master saboteur of a new Big Brother spying technology called Tumbleweeds that can listen to conversations even when cell phones are not in use (but ON of course). Clearly a potential concern of the moment. To some all this may appear far-fetched, even conspiratorial, but it is within the realm of the possible, especially considering the increasing collaboration of phone companies with the NSA. Would you rely on Nokia, Samsung and other phone manufacturers to protect your privacy?

A mediocre spy flick, not worth the last hour, this movie could have been a lot better with better editing, to liven it up and make it a good chunk shorter. It takes a nose dives and stalls somewhere in the middle, despite its realistic plot line.

Michael Parks did a great job as an actor, there were other good performances from some others in the cast, however I had trouble finding the character of Francesca believable because her emotions sometimes conflicted with the scene she was in.

As far as this one goes, i would avoid it and watch something like SpyGame, its a little more far-fetched but at least it wont put you to sleep (yes i think the government has the Tech to screen every phone call) As to you crackpots out there rating this movie a 10, how can this movie be everything that every other movie is not, and worth a perfect score?