BLACKHAT
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Wei Tang, Leehom Wang
Directed by Michael Mann
For his big-screen debut, Thief, Michael Mann enlisted a convicted safecracker to mentor James Caan and ensure that his star proved convincing as a burglar. Twenty-four years later (and with crime classics like Heat to his credit), Mann remains every bit as committed to verisimilitude when it comes to criminal enterprise, enrolling Chris Hemsworth in computer camp so that he could pass as a hacker in Blackhat. And while the honorary Asgardian now comes equipped with a pretty sweet keystroke, he’s still primarily deployed as a perpetually brooding action figure posed against the urban backdrops of swirling fluorescent lights that Mann has masterfully composed with cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh.
To be clear, screenwriter Morgan Davis Foehl has half-baked a convoluted plot for this cyber-thriller involving an alpha geek (Hemsworth) who’s been sprung from prison and sent globetrotting in order to stop the shadowy hacker who’s employing malware to wreck chaos on both nuclear reactors and stock prices. However, Mann doesn’t demonstrate nearly as much interest in advancing the storyline as he does pushing his aesthetic predilections to almost absurdly abstract extremes. Whereas standard action fare offers up elaborate set-pieces, Blackhat delivers a succession of arresting images, be it a speedboat cruising through Hong Kong harbour or Hemsworth wading through a torch-lit parade.
The result is an assuredly divisive film that will leave most viewers cold, if not outright confounded, while fueling heated post-screening discussion amongst Mann’s devotees concerning his hallmark thematic concerns and singular techniques. And should Blackhat’s abysmal box office spell the end the septuagenarian action auteur’s blockbuster days, at least he’s bowing out on his own idiosyncratic terms.
