Blackhat (**)

Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis Ritchie Coster, Holt McCallany, Yorick van Wageningen, Leehom Wang
Seen: March 9th 2015

** Out of ****

Blackhat is a technological thriller from the director who brought us such fantastic movies as The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, and Collateral. In Blackhat though, we see only momentary glimpses of the greatness behind those movies, which are easy to miss as the movie is so slow-moving that their punctual nature are more likely to surprize you out of a lull in concentration than they are to energize you. The movie is boring and it’s too late in coming to the hacker-creating-global-havoc party. It doesn’t have much more to say either, the hacker plot is all of it, and it carries nothing like Collateral’s message of disconnect from those around us or Heat’s message of love overcoming a self-imposed rule of non-attachment. Along with that, Blackhat is only marginally successful as a techno-thriller, as its visual impact, however modern, is wasted on all but the most knowledgeable – few will know what current technology looks like when zoomed in on and few will care about lines of code running across a screen as actors stare at it intently.

Blackhat starts with a nuclear reactor in Hong Kong overheating and exploding, leaving in its wake death and destruction. It is revealed that the plant was hacked and the only one to figure out how is Captain Chen Dawai (Wang), a member of a Chinese Cyber Warfare Unit, who recognises some of the code in the remote access tool (RAT) used for the attack. He gets an interview with FBI Agent Carol Barrett (Davis) and informs her that he, together with American prisoner Nick Hathaway (Hemsworth), developed the RAT when they were college roommates. Hatahway is granted a furlough to assist with the case, and soon enough Hathaway, Dawai, and Dawai’s sister Chen Lein (Wei), together with FBI Agent Barrett are tracking the seemingly random hacking attacks, trying to figure out the next target while eluding The Boss’ (van Wageningen) ruthless mercenary, Kassar (Coster).

A few exhilarating and succinct yet volatile shootouts serve as visual reminder that Mann directed Heat while some quick chases and ferociously effective hand-to-hand fights vaguely remind of Collateral, and in these short scenes I found myself brutally entertained, even if it was for a combined total of only about five minutes of the movie’s entire running time. Some action scenes are filmed in shaky-cam, and while luckily not nearly enough to bring on nausea, they do nothing to enhance the urgency and are somewhat distracting.

Chris Hemsworth is a dashing hero, and does what he can with the material; meaning we see a lot of him looking at a screen trying to figure out how to stop the villain or gazing into the distance guessing at a motive. When he is required to fight or move he is believable as a violently effective combatant, and with Ritchie Koster’s viscious Kassar it’s definitely required now and then.


Blackhat is only for those who are well-rested and prepared for a movie that’s far slower than could reasonably be expected from trailers and advertising. Even then it would be a stretch though, as the movie could easily have been cut by over 30 minutes into a more streamlined telling of, despite plot complications, a relatively straight-forward story. I expected a much better thriller than Blackhat delivered, and I only hope no-one else falls for its marketing.

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