Blackhat

In what is certainly a lesser Michael Mann film, Chris Hemsworth stars as hacker Nicholas Hathaway released from prison to help a joint taskforce between the United States and China headed by Hathaway's college roommate PLA Captain Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang). The small group also includes Dawai's sister Chen Lien (Tang Wei) with Viola Davis and Holt McCallany making up the American side of the group. While not connected to the cyber-attacks themselves, Hathaway is responsible for the code used by the hackers to break into systems in both the United States and China.

The trope of criminal working along with cops is tested and true (my favorite example being in the USA series White Collar). It works best when there's at least the plausibility of the criminal working his own angles or making a run for it (neither of which is part of Blackhat). Despite his criminal past, Hathaway is a stand-up guy and with his eventually freedom being tied to catching the hacker there's never a reason for these ideas to be explored by the script.

In what's mostly a cat-and-mouse game with our protagonists always two steps behind the hackers, eventually they get close enough for the hackers to take notice leading to multiple shoot-out sequences and car chases before ending with one last action sequence featuring Hathaway going low-tech to take out the remaining baddies during a religious procession in Malaysia.

Blackhat isn't a bad film, but it's far from the director's best. A critical failure and a box office bomb (the film earned back less than a third of its reported budget), It's hard not to classify it as a miss, even if it does produce some tense moments and exiting sequences (when not tying Hemsworth to a keyboard).

Less silly than Hackers, it lacks that film's whimsy and kinetic energy. And while certainly more grounded, Blackhat ultimately isn't that much more realistic given the various action cliches its world is forced to revolve on. As a straight crime caper the film is also wanting. The romance between Hathaway and Lien seems rushed, the actions of the governments with questionable orders to their men in the field (cutting them off just when they are making progress), another overused trope, only prolongs events further than necessary. And Hemsworth's casting is also a bit perplexing, although his physicality comes into play during the film's final act.

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• Title: Blackhat
• IMDb: link