Antitrust

Rating:
Summary: Story good, Acting good, Suspense bad.
Review: Antitrust stars Ryan Phillippe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Claire Forlani and Timn Robins. The story is good. And the acting is good too. So whats wrong with this movie. Well, for a suspense movie it just does not work. this movie is about Milo (Ryan) lands a job and a computer company. tim Robbins is just like a Bill Gates. He is going to intoduce a service that can aloow people to see friends, family and just about everyone on any device. Labtop, Cell Phone, Email ECT.... Then his best friends Teddy is murdered. He then starts getting suspicious that Tim might have something to with his friends death. Like I said that movie is good and so is the acting. But there is just no suspense! On my scale from 0-10 Antitrust is a Fascinating, Techno, slow pacing 5.

Rating:
Summary: Shoulda been good....
Review: Somewhere, there was an intention to come up with a good movie here. I'm not sure if it was meant to be a thriller, an indictment of the Bill Gates syndrome, or a satire. It would've done well as any of the three.

There is stuff here for computer buffs, and should be worth seeing by those in that camp. There does seem to be some that think it fails in accuracy, but even if it does, it will give groups of computer people something to talk about.

And from about the mid point on, it comes close to succeeding as a thriller if you don't think too much about it. It's kind of the type of movie to watch when your brain's worn out and you enjoy watching the flickers on the screen.

Rating:
Summary: A nice movie, though the acting is lacking...
Review: What I said is true, the acting is lacking, and the direction is dry, but the plot is pretty nice, in my opinion.

I won't go into detail, as that is in other reviews, and in the editorial.

I will say however the soundtrack (which is not seperately sold, though cited in the movie) was good. And also the message about open-source, and the reality and integrity of the technical elements in the movie made it enjoyable for me (an open-source advocate, and programmer).

Rating:
Summary: Banal
Review: 'Antitrust' takes a potentially interesting topic, tortures it into the shape of a teen thriller, and ends up simply embarrassing its audience. Every plot development is delivered with sledgehammer subtlety, every twist and red herring glaringly obvious from the outset in a half-baked script which isn't helped by amateurish editing and direction. Although the actors do try to make the best of it. Ryan Phillippe brings a knowing banality to the sickeningly preachy lines his Milo has to deliver, and Tim Robbins seems to have taken one look at the script and decided he might as well have fun with this wild-eyed, murderous caricature of Bill Gates - either that or he spent the whole shoot high on caffeine. If only he'd written and directed this, it might have been worthy of his involvement. There are at least three better ways this material could have been dramatized: (1) as a serious legal drama; (2) as a sardonic mockumentary about being an intern at Microsoft; or (3) as a true psychological thriller, not about murder and mayhem, but about our paranoia that Bill Gates and his minions really are Satanists with a lust for intergalactic domination, rather than just greedy computer nerds with a penchant for bad art.

Rating:
Summary: Reality Bytes
Review: Computer whiz Milo Hoffman (Ryan Phillipe) gets an awesome job at the world's largest computer company, NURV. Milo was handpicked by the C.E.O.,Gary Winston (Tim Robbins) to work for him. Winston hopes to one day revolutionize the way the world comminicates, with his new technology. As Milo starts on the project, his freind, is brutally murdered and evidence leads to NURV's involvment. Milo races to uncover the truth and stay alive. Phillipe does a pretty good job of upping the ante and creating enough jitters to keep the film entertaining. Robbins does a fair amount of scene chewing to make it almost laughable. I can forgive that though, thanks to the presence of, Rachel Leigh Cook and Claire Forlani, as the women aiding and abetting Milo. This thriller, plotholes and all, is still worth your time. In my opinion, ANTITRUST is better than the other cyber-film, THE NET.

The DVD Special Edition has a good commentary track with the director and film editor. There are a few deleted scenes and a "fluffy" making of featurette. Also included is the Everclear music video, "When it all goes wrong again", an alternate opening/ending that is rather interesting to see All in all, ANTITRUST is not a great film, but it isn't all that bad either. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: kind of a fantasy of every new grad
Review: This flick was entertaining -- I saw it as a bit like a more suspenseful "Reality Bites", where the 4 friends, all computer geeks working in a garage, graduated Stanford. Milo (Ryan Phillippe) takes a job at a big company that is deemed 'evil' (in this case, NURV run by a Bill Gates-like Tim Robbins), therefore selling out. His best friend Teddy goes to a competitor. Other friends are IT for a local public access TV station, and slips his resume to the sell-out.

Then Teddy is killed and his work stolen, and it becomes clear to Milo that his company is on top for a reason. He just has to find out how and prove it. He enlists his girlfriend Alice (Claire Forlani) and co-worker Lisa (Rachel Leigh Cook -- who doesn't look old enough to play anyone with a full-time job) in aiding him. But how much can one geek really do?

This is a dramatic film about a David taking on a Goliath who has minions to help him. You will be on the edge of your seat!

Rating:
Summary: Just plain stupid
Review: It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, showing the terrible potential of huge computer firms. Yet this paranoid fantasy never manages to scare its audience, it doesn't even manage to make them care. It has Ryan Phillipe as a computer whizz who discovers that the man who has employed him (Robbins) is killing off his competitors.

There are countless flaws in this movie, especially in casting Ryan Phillipe as the main character. Marvellous as he was in 'Cruel Intentions', he cannot play a nerd to save his life, even if someone obviously did think that he could if he was wearing glasses. As the computer business owner, in a clumsy parallel with Bill Gates, Robbins switches between serious and ludicrous. Both are good actors stuck in the wrong movie. The two female leads, Claire Forlani and Rachel Leigh Cook are used as eye candy and little else. Someone should have thought long and hard before casting a lot of beautiful teenagers as computer geniuses.

There is nothing sophisticated or even remotely realisitic about this. For example, Robbins has his enemies killed through street thugs. A thousand other paranoid fantasies in this vein are out there and 'Antitrust' would have to come at the bottom of the pile. The countless twists and turns in the tale certainly aren't ironic, they're just plain stupid. Plus, it's unclear who Howitt was aiming the movie at. It's genre would suggest an entirely different audience to its stars. The ending has a moral tagged on as an afterthought and all loose ends are tied up with one of the most laughable conclusions to any movie. There really is little of note in this movie at all.

Rating:
Summary: A decent tale poorly told
Review: I can't tell a joke well. A bad joke isn't funny no matter who tells it, but a person such as myself can make a good joke bad. A story also has to be told well and, in the case of a movie, filmed well, to be interesting. The problem with AntiTrust is that it's an okay tale that isn't told or filmed very well. It's lovely to look at, yet has neither electricity nor soul.

Milo [Ryan Phillippe] is a computer genius. Fresh out of college, he plans to start a business with some friends out of a garage, just like their computer heroes did twenty years ago. They plan to make their mark in cyberspace. One day, seemingly out of the blue, Milo and his best friend are approached by Gary Winston [Tim Robbins], who wants them to come to work for his giant, multinational company. It seems Winston is about to launch a computer program which will revolutionize communications, but he needs a few good geeks to get it operational. The friend, a wise young man, decides to stick to his original plan, but Milo gets sucked in. Along with his girlfriend Alice [Claire Forlani], he packs up and moves to Portland, Oregon, the home of Winston's Nurve Corporation. It isn't long before Milo suspects that Winston will literally kill to get what he wants. Breakthroughs in the programming of the new product always seem to happen just after the mysterious death of some bright programmer.

One of the problems in the movie is with some of the casting. Tim Robbins is fine as Winston, making him look and act so much like Bill Gates that it's a bit spooky. Ryan Phillippe, however, I can't buy as any kind of genius. He's done a good job in the past playing such roles as a sociopath [Cruel Intentions], a psychopath [The Way of the Gun] and a party boy [54]. But a computer whiz? I don't think so. Rachael Lee Cook is equally unbelievable as Lisa, a fellow programmer. Claire Forlani, who may be a star one day soon, is fine as Alice, but it's a part that's way beneath her capabilities.

AntiTrust belongs to the paranoid thriller genre. That's the one in which only the hero has figured out a diabolical plot. Until the end of the movie, the rest of the characters are almost always blind to the truth and tend to believe that the hero is simply stressed out. Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is a classic example of this kind of film. To succeed, the movie must cause the audience to care about the protagonist. It must relate to him This doesn't happen in AntiTrust. Milo is just too bland and lame to hold our interest. It's one of those cases where, if we relate to anyone at all, it's to the bad guy, Winston. At least he's quick-witted and somehow humorous. You know a movie is in trouble when we start rooting for the villian.

Rating:
Summary: A Thriller For A New Generation
Review: This film is a perfect thriller for our times. The plot is about a computer company, NURV, run by a Bill Gates-like CEO, Gary Winston (Tim Robbins), who is perfect for the part. He hires a young programmer named Milo Hoffman (Ryan Phillipe) who is deemed a genius. Winston wants him to develop a program called Synapse, which reminds me of AT&T's MLife. But this dream job becomes a nightmare after Hoffman's best friend is killed, and the clues point to NURV. Now he plans to finish the program for the sole purpose of exposing Gary Winston. Along the way, he is aided by a sexy coworker, Lisa (Rachel Leigh Cook), and learns the truth about his girlfriend. This is a great movie that will keep you guessing. It shows that in the world of business, especially software, you must know who to trust, and know how to deal with your enemies. I give it four stars because it has a great story, and the actors are wonderful, however, some things are a little goofy, and I don't like one of the final twists.

Rating:
Summary: Bill Who?
Review: Seems there's a lot of similarities between the main villain and Bill Gates. The movie is well done. It's a shame it had to end the way it did. I recamend the DVD over the video in this case.