This film didn’t seem to attract much attention when it came out. It has a solid cast including Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Liam Hemsworth, Amber Heard and Richard Dreyfuss.
The film is adapted from a best-seller corporate-espionage novel. Adam Cassidy [Liam Hemsworth] heads a small team of developers working at Wyatt Corporation. The action is supposed to be set in Manhattan, though the filming was actually in Philadelphia. Adam is a “bridge and tunnel kid”, as his would-be girlfriend puts it. That is, he lives in New Jersey and commutes into Manhattan, and he is middle class at best, but aspiring to climb up the ladder of corporate success and become at least moderately rich. All his team-mates have the same dreams.
Wyatt Corporation is locked in a death-struggle with its arch-competitor, Eikon Corp (I LOVE the name!). In this age of merging media, each aspires to gain dominance over the cellphone industry and basically, every other form of electronic media to boot. Gary Oldman plays the boss of Wyatt Corp, and Harrison Ford plays “Jocko”: Jock Goddard, the head of Eikon. Watching the competition, I couldn’t help but think of Apple vs. Microsoft, though perhaps Apple vs. Google is a more apt comparison today…
Well, Adam blows his presentation to the boss and he and his entire team are let go. Then the boss offers him one chance to redeem himself: weasel his way into the competitor, Eikon, and steal the designs for their upcoming cellphone. Adam is reluctant. “It’s criminal! I could go to prison!” Oldman/Wyatt points out that EVERY CORPORATION steals from other corporations. This is business as usual…
So Wyatt positions Adam Cassidy as an apparent big star at his company, and gets him recruited by Eikon, his competitor. Now the plot truly begins.
Naturally Adam falls head-over-heels for a bright and attractive young executive at Eikon, Emma Jennings, played by Amber Heard. And gee, Harrison Ford’s Jocko seems like such a LIKEABLE guy. Sincere; interested in producing great new products; informal, even kind to his employees. By contrast, Wyatt and company appear….well, downright EVIL…
In discussing the Next Big Thing, Jocko explains to Adam that “People are gonna LOVE it! They’ll have instant connectivity to everything they want! And….we’ll know everything about them!” Adam says uneasily, “Do you think people will be bothered by all their personal information being under one roof?” To which Jocko replies, “No…what will matter more to them is that nice COZY FEELING under that roof.”
Well of course it turns out that “Jocko” is nowhere near as benevolent as he seems on the surface, nor is he fooled by Adam or by Wyatt. Adam is the biggest chump, getting manipulated by both companies in turn. Can he manage to survive in one piece?
Without revealing too much of the plot, I’ll just say it manages to find a reasonably happy ending. But what still resonates with me is the images: cellphone voice recorders recording you when you don’t know they are; their cameras filming you while you don’t know; TV set-cameras recording you; and you have no idea how many people have access to all your data, nor what they may do with it. That sobering reaity in this “internet age” goes way beyond one character’s story, or even the story of two corporations. I give this film a B. Some reviewers hated it, and said it offered absolutely nothing new. I think that it kept up a good pace, had me feeling the emotions Adam was feeling, and left me pondering bigger issues at the end.
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Paranoia
An entry-level employee at a powerful corporation finds himself occupying a corner office, but at a dangerous price: he must spy on his boss's old mentor to secure for him a multi-billion dollar advantage.
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- Studio
- Relativity Media, LLC
- Rating
- PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
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- Stream instantly Details
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- Prime Video (streaming online video)
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- Available to watch on supported devices
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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2014
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Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2019
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Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2014
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Top reviews from other countries
Mrs. V. Seymour
Paranoia
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 3, 2015Verified Purchase
Niemar
Average
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 23, 2020Verified Purchase
KaSmi
Prompt & Efficient Delivery Service
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2020Verified Purchase
David Currie
Watch thy neighbour!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 24, 2019Verified Purchase
Michael Russell
It's a good film worth watching and sharing with the family
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 5, 2018Verified Purchase
