Paranoia (2013) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Thriller

Tagline: In a war between kings even a pawn can change the game.

Oscar Nominees Harrison Ford (42) and Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight) star with Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games) in this high-stakes espionage thriller based on Joseph Finder's New York Times best seller. Fired from his telecom job, Adam Cassidy (Hemsworth) is forced by company CEO Nicolas Wyatt (Oldman) to infiltrate Wyatt's longtime rival's (Ford) company to steal trade secrets. Soon, Adam realizes that he's caught between two ruthless players who will stop at nothing to win. But, desperate to win over an Ivy League beauty (Amber Heard) and help his blue-collar father, Adam risks everything in a dangerous race against time in this electrifying film directed by Robert Luketic.

Storyline: The high stakes thriller Paranoia takes us deep behind the scenes of global success to a deadly world of greed and deception. The two most powerful tech billionaires in the world (Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman) are bitter rivals with a complicated past who will stop at nothing to destroy each other. A young superstar (Liam Hemsworth), seduced by unlimited wealth and power falls between them, and becomes trapped in the middle of the twists and turns of their life-and-death game of corporate espionage. By the time he realizes his life is in danger, he is in far too deep and knows far too much for them to let him walk away. Written by Relativity Media

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman on November 19, 2013 -- Paranoia is one of those films that probably looked great on paper—and maybe even on its actual promotional poster—but which is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Or even worse, wallpaper. (Wallpaper doesn't dry, but I digress.) This supposed thriller posits Liam Hemsworth as Adam Cassidy a young buck at a high tech firm who dreams of migrating across the river into Manhattan and taking the world by storm. Unfortunately, he's stuck in a low level job as one of countless drones living out their days in cubicles while watching their superiors take home obscene bonuses. Adam has come up with a brilliant idea he wants to pitch to his company's Chief Executive Officer, Nicolas Wyatt (Gary Oldman), something to do with smartphones being able to access social media (ummm—isn't that already a possibility?). Wyatt is singularly unimpressed and fires Adam and his cohorts on the spot. Adam then makes the really smart decision to use a corporate expense credit card he still has to take his former work colleagues out for a night on the town, racking up a bill of $16,000 (hey, it's New York and it isn't happy hour any longer). He catches the eye of a pretty lass at a club and the two end up in bed together. The next morning he's summoned rather brusquely into Wyatt's executive suite where he's issued an ultimatum: either agree to be groomed to infiltrate Wyatt's chief nemesis' high tech firm in order to steal corporate secrets, or go to prison for credit card fraud. Adam is pained, yes pained (Hemsworth's expressions throughout this film seem to indicate he's passing rather large kidney stones quite a bit of the time), but of course agrees. Things aren't all bad, though, since Wyatt's coterie of henchmen (and women) line up to remake Adam in a socially acceptable corporate image. That includes new clothes, a new car and a super luxe Manhattan apartment. We're barely fifteen minutes into this heaping pile of pretension, and already it has strained credulity to beyond the breaking point.

Legendary screenwriting mentor Syd Field has just passed away, and in his honor, let's play a little "Syd Field" game in predictive reasoning. Let's say the a film sets up a handsome male star and a comely young female star who meet "by chance" at a club, almost immediately have sex and then, despite the guy's efforts to get the girl's number, are swept up in the ever raging currents of downtown Manhattan, supposedly never to see each other again. Let's then say that this guy gets involved in a massive conspiracy to infiltrate a high tech company, which all hinges on an interview with one of that company's executives. So now let's all play "Syd Field" and answer the pressing question: who's going to show up to that meeting as a representative of the new company? If you are unable to come up with the appropriate answer, you are evidently the target audience for this brain dead "thriller", one which broadcasts virtually every move its going to make according to the hard and fast rules of Screenwriting 101.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Adam is indeed able to infiltrate the new high tech company, where he engages in romantic escapades with Emma (Amber Heard), his erstwhile one night stand. He also ingratiates himself to the new company's head honcho, Jock Goddard (Harrison Ford), who has a rather twisted history with Adam's "real" employer, Wyatt. The whole silly enterprise revolves around all knowing, all seeing smartphones, which as anyone with anything newer than a flip phone can tell you is decidedly old news. Paranoia trots out its supposedly breathtaking revelations about nefarious software as if this information would be enough to provoke gasps of horror in the audience, when the most likely response is instead going to be "And your point is?"

It's actually a little depressing just how rote and formulaic Paranoia is. Rarely has corporate intrigue been so, well, unintriguing. Oldman is curiously tamped down here (it might have been fun had been encouraged to let loose with one of his famously hyperbolic performances), and Ford isn't much more energetic himself (plus, the weird decision to shear him of all of his hair makes him look like a recent chemotherapy survivor). Hemsworth is frankly embarrassing in this role. He struts athletically (and the film of course gives him plenty of opportunities to show off his naked upper body), but his performance is just plain laughable most of the time. Only Richard Dreyfuss, as Adam's workaday father, seems to be having a little fun, though his part is barely even a cameo. Maybe he should be thanking his lucky stars.

This movie about evil, evil smarphones is just plain dumb. A game cast and some good location work can't save this train wreck. Even fans of any of the stars will be hard pressed to find anything worthwhile here, though at least the technical merits of the Blu-ray are first rate.

[CSW] -2.2- It had potential, wasted potential. Even with a stellar supporting cast (Oldman and Ford), the corporate espionage plot wasn't that original, and nothing that you haven't seen before. Besides that this so-called thriller is not too credible. There's just too may why? What were you thinking? types of questions. It's not a terrible movie. The acting is serviceable, but it's just not that interesting. See the movie if you must. It's entirely forgettable, but it's up to you.
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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