Paranoia
Mercifully Short Review by Jonathan Empson
Adam (Liam Hemsworth) is a junior brain at tech company Wyatt Corporation. He and his team are fired by Nicholas Wyatt (Gary Oldman) for pitching a product that Wyatt thinks is pointless. I’m with Wyatt on that one. But Wyatt then rehires the cash-strapped Adam to infiltrate Eikon, run by Wyatt’s nemesis Jock Goddard (Harrison Ford, shorter than I remember), in order to steal a new phone design.
Why Eikon then employs Adam, a failed whiz kid, is not explained very well. It’s one of many loose threads in this thriller, which is nowhere near as smart, slick or tense as it needs to be. The dialogue is dull and the characters are pretty flat: the director’s notes to Amber Heard, playing Adam’s love interest, seem to have been largely “walk from here to there, looking beautiful”. Which, admittedly, she does well. 6/10
Released September 5, 2013.
