Antitrust (June 20/01)

Antitrust is one of those thrillers that, as long as you don't think about it too much, you'll probably enjoy it.

Ryan Phillippe stars as a hot-shot young computer programmer that's recruited by a Microsoft-esque software company called Nurv. Tim Robbins plays the Bill Gates-ish boss. Phillippe thinks everything is great, until he begins to wonder where Nurv is getting all their ideas from. Here's a clue: It's not from within the compound.

While Antitrust isn't exactly bad, it doesn't exactly offer up any thought-provoking themes or suspenseful sequences. This is like The Conversation for 12-year-olds. The story is entirely predictable (mostly; admittedly, there were a few double-crossings I hadn't counted on) and the script is almost laughable at times with its dialogue ("in the real world, when you kill someone, they die!" - oh, brother) and knowledge of computers. Really, how many more times are we going to have to watch a skilled hacker sit down at a computer and immediately begin typing. Isn't there some sort of alternate screen he has to get to?

And Antitrust seems to think very little of it's audience, because the screenplay has been dumbed down to a level that's almost comedic. Consider this: There's a scene in which Phillippe begins to realize that something is amiss at Nurv and he begins flashing back to things he's already seen. Now, I don't object to this, but I do object to throwing things into the flashback that just happened. No joke. One of the things he flashes back on happened less than five minutes before. Apparently the filmmakers were worried that Leonard Shelby might be watching.

The acting is okay - perfunctory is probably a better word to describe it. Phillippe will never be a really great actor and I think he knows that. In a role like this, he's good. He doesn't need to do much other than look either happy or scared, and he pulls it off quite nicely. Robbins is good, too, but he usually is. It's not initially evident that he's gonna turn out to be as evil as he winds up, and Robbins deserves credit for that. He also deserves credit for not turning the character into a raving loony in the final act (which he did in the much-better Arlington Road).

Antitrust will never go down in history as a great thriller, but nowadays, when thrillers are about as popular as whale meat, it'll suffice.