I am writing this review on a word processor that is connected to a computer that sets the type for the Sun-Times. If I make an error, the computer will tell me. Observe. I instruct it to set this review at a width of 90 characters. It flashes back: Margin too wide. Now things get interesting. I ask it to set the width at 100 characters. It flashes back: Margin too narrow. That's because it's reading only the first two digits of my three-digit number.
So wrote Roger Ebert in 1983 to start his review of Wargames, a film about a computer whiz kid who mistakenly breaks into a computer in the Department of Defense. Hacker films are thrilling because most of us don’t understand the machines that run our lives. We depend on the connectedness of the machines, but the code is mysterious, and when it doesn’t do what we want, frustrating. As Ebert pointed out, word processors, or computers now, are constantly trying to fix what they deem to be errors, even when we want it our “wrong” way. Only a few seem to have the ability to move through those networks with the speed and ease of a New Yorker racing through rush hour streets. If only we knew what to do, we too could destroy our enemies and balloon our bank accounts. Hacking, despite the fact that its reality is long boring hours typing and fixing code into a computer, is therefore a perfect topic for an action packed adventure. Thus, the hacker adventure flick subgenre.
Blackhat picks up our most recent fears from the opening sequence when we become aware that our beautiful blue Earth is wired by electric networks, with everything from nuclear power plants to the stock market, our national security and our bank accounts, dependent on computers and the code running those circuit boards. When a hacker sets a virus into a Chinese power plant with a consequent meltdown, then follows that catastrophe with a stock market run on soy, the Chinese government requests to partner with the FBI, suggesting Nicholas Hathaway, a convicted hacker played by People’s Sexiest Man of the Year Chris Hemsworth, be released from prison to help them track this blackhat.
The term blackhat refers to hackers who break into a computer network with malevolent intent, destroying data or stealing information for their own purpose. Blackhats will take advantage of a known entry point to exploit the company, nation or service dependent on the network. Is the film an accurate depiction of hacking? Well, yes and no. Michael Mann did spend time with Mike Rogers, who was head of the House Intelligence Committee, and hired Kevin Poulsen, a senior editor at Wired who was sent to jail for being a blackhat with a three year ban on any computer use after his release, and Christopher McKinlay, the mathematician who hoped to find love by hacking OKCupid last year, to serve as consultants on the film. They ensured that the code on screen looked authentic, but the fact is that code writing or deciphering is long, boring work that does not make for good film, and so the film requires a willingness to suspend disbelief at the speed with which our actors identify and break through the various information roadblocks.
Hathoway (Hemsworth) was a hacker but as he insists he never robbed people, only banks, making it easier for all of to rest assured that we are rooting for Robin Hood. When he hacks into the NSA, we agree it is the right move. Hathoway helped write the code that is causing all this damage while he was at MIT, before he went to prison for hacking into a bank, and so he’s not only a computer genius, but also in perfect shape to fight singlehandedly his way out of a Korean restaurant, have a shoot out on the docks on Hong Kong, followed by another one on its streets, chase and hunt down the man who would hack his way through civilization. All this and have a love affair too. Don’t be fooled by Hathoway’s reading material, which includes Derrida and Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition. This film won’t deconstruct anything, but it will blow up a few buildings and people. Blackhat sets out to be a cyber thriller and it succeeds, as long as you don’t take it too seriously.
This may not be one of Michael Mann’s great films but it has all the elements that he does so well. The tensions between two opposing governments, as well as police and criminal forces is classic for the director of Heat, Collateral, and Miami Vice. Since the term blackhat is rooted in Western movies, where the bad guys often wore black hats, this might be seen as Mann’s ode to the genre. Roaming from Chicago, to Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Kuala Lampur, and Jakarta, the film is mostly shot on location with electric cityscapes, and panoramic exteriors of the mines in Kuala Lampur. The music supports the three narrative changes from international cyber-crime scare, to renegade team who can only win by ignoring direct orders, to the personal vengeance that fuels the final portion of the film.
Michael Mann’s visual aesthetic remains gripping whether for the fight scenes or the initially awkward love story. The bad guys are really bad. The good guys are really sensitive and caring. There are two women: the smart FBI lead played by Viola Davis, who does much with the little she is given; the impressive financial software designer (Wei Tang) whose intelligence is secondary to her passion for our hero. The contemporary hacking scares, or the concerns about encouraging women to go into technology might have elevated this film but honestly, this is a good old-fashioned, cyber-crime, race-against-time, action-adventure, hero-with-love-interest story. For 135 minutes, you will forget about your comparatively unimportant problems, and if you don’t think about it too much, you’ll enjoy it all the way home and forget about it by the time you finish changing all your passwords.
Blackhat, directed by Michael Mann opens Friday, January 16, 2015
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