I’m put in an odd position by Michael Mann’s latest picture, Blackhat (out in theaters today, Jan. 16), as in many ways it’s a demonstrably poor film – clunky dialogue, preposterous plotting, and a lack of chemistry between lead performers at key points throughout – yet I am still writing here to you in support of checking it out. Such is the strange alchemy of Mann’s filmmaking, a director capable of such a visceral kick in his action sequences that it manages to elevate what is otherwise a quite shoddy experience. The seed of the idea behind the film isn’t a bad one – nefarious cyber terrorist must be brought down by fellow ‘blackhat’ hacker before his digital fatwa can be carried out — especially in an age where the Sony hacks proved how eminently vulnerable some of our largest entities are in the digital realm. And while it does beggar belief ever so slightly to have no less than Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, in the lead role as a renegade hacker, he has proven himself charismatic in previous performances.
He is stranded by this role, though, a gruff convict with a New York-ish accent who hasn’t had meaningful connection to the outside world in many years and finds himself in a desperate gambit to earn his freedom. That the dialogue he’s saddled with is made-for-TV level (he actually drops an “I’ve got you now, you sonofa [expletive]” at one point). And while it’s exciting for the rest of the cast to be as racially diverse as it is (the always wonderful Viola Davis, John Ortiz, and Leehom Wang), it must be said that Hemsworth is unable to draw sparks with any of his castmates. This is especially problematic when a romance develops between he and Tang Wei’s character in the film, the sister of his former classmate, and neither performer is able to make the lust and longing for one another feel like anything more than rote plot development instead of something genuine.
Also problematic is the fact that even though Mann is a filmmaker more keenly attuned to the visual than many other filmmakers currently working, dudes sitting on computers sorting through and firing off chunks of code is a decidedly non-cinematic venture. He tries his best, to be sure, kicking off the film with a cyber-assault on a Chinese nuclear reactor wherein the camera dives into the fiber optics and hard drives being assaulted in an attempt to realistically visualize the data-level assaults being carried out when malware and malicious code goes to work, but even that attempt at dynamism can’t mask the fact that this isn’t grist for a visually evocative mill. I don’t want to oversell the action sequences in this picture, as they’re not masterpieces of editing or fight choreography, yet they are the film’s saving grace. What makes these sequences stand out are Mann’s very particular rhythms when shooting. Take the two shootouts that occur, where other directors would take these moments as a means to speed up and make chaotic their work, Mann doesn’t succumb to frenetic editing or flagrant incoherence on a shot-by-shot basis. Instead, each bullet that finds its mark is a felt commodity, making each near miss that much more nerve-wracking. And they unfold at the speed of life, giving the sense that these are professionals following protocols and carrying out contingencies whenever the situations begin to spiral, and I always gravitate toward depictions of competent professionals in cinema, no matter the genre.
So there you have it. Despite the many ungainly, what some would describe as “crippling,” flaws that it houses, I still find myself recommending Blackhat to you. The moments where the film comes roaring to life with fully-realized action and suspense sequences make up for the nearly wholesale issues that plague the rest of the film in my estimation. There’s a good chance that most who check this out won’t be won over by these flashes of inspiration, and will instead feel stranded in a thicket of dense plotting, dense characters, and dense dialogue. But even at it’s most thuddingly obvious, Mann has imbued Blackhat with his particular sensibility to a level that I had no choice but to succumb. Like a grandma clicking on virus-ridden pop-ups, I find myself sucked in.
