[Review: IN THEATRES] Paranoia (6/10)

TV is often more entertaining than going to the movies – we love movies, but TV is designed to be consumable, often not on a big 28 foot screen. Paranoia is essentially a TV-movie, it’s a slick professional looking product telling an efficient story –it’s engaging in the moment even if early on our lead looks like an idiot (“how did you find me” the young mobile tech genus asks while holding his GPS-enabled smart phone).

Directed by Robert Luketic, Paranoia is essentially as like a pre-paid cell phone: chap, disposable, likely not full of personal impressions – yet it does the job. It’s not a bad or incompitent film: it’s just not an ambitious one. Liam Hemsworth stars as Adam Cassidy, working for five years at a tech company run by Nicholas Wyatt (Gary Oldman) he’s still a step above intern. His presentation to Wyatt early on is a bust and they’re unceremoniously fired (security doesn’t even escort them out of the door). Luckily for Cassidy’s team their company purchasing card still works and Adam treats his pals to a night out, Kayne West style.

After bedding the lovely Emma Jennings (Amber Heard), who is just down for an NSA relationship in both senses (No Strings Attached sex AND she will tap your phone – Edward Snowden style), he’s called into Wyatt’s office and blackmailed into going undercover for his rival Jock Goddard (Harrison Ford). Hooked up with a PhD in psychology and a tailor, he’s hired at Goddard’s mobile tech firm in a section the film just seems to skip over (if it wasn’t digital I would have thought the projectionist missed a reel).

Emma Jennings just happens to be the head of marketing for the new firm which is full of pretty innovative ideas that Apple is probably about to crack – Hemsworth is certainly not a young Steve Jobs and Jennings is way hotter than Phil Schiller. The film is interestingly saying something – not quite an anthem for Occupy Wall Street, it lacks the firepower to go where it ought to. I will not spoil the ending but a few things become painfully obvious (many of which are in the trailer) and it could make for an interesting commentary about how the deck is stacked against smart kids who do the right thing and work hard. Either that or the film is commenting on how we’re not all rock stars and we should know our place – ambition and hardwork aren’t enough, you also need talent, smarts and innovation. Scary to think in the context of President Obama’s upcoming visit to UB about the importance of making college affordable (or not).

Back to Paranoia: the film is a little uneven – much has been made of Hemsworth who is okay but certainly barely holding his own against a stellar cast of heavy weights including Gary Oldman, Amber Heard, Harrison Ford and Richard Dreyfuss – but then again maybe that’s the point. Young Adam Cassidy works hard but hasn’t had the luck or the break he needs until he breaks several rules. Sometime, as Homer Simpson reminds us, that the poster to How Stella Got Her Groove Back suggestions that sometimes “you have to break the rules to free your heart”.

Note: We had seen this at the recently redone AMC Maple Ridge – and what a comfortable experience! More on that here...

Screening: AMC Maple Ridge, Dipson Flix, Dipson Market Arcade, Regal Transit, Regal Quaker Crossing, Regal Elmwood, Regal Hollywood 12.