Antitrust (DVD)

Imagine if you would, that we could link every communication machine together and be able to send any kind of data we want to any machine, pictures to mobiles, videos to computers and TVs and generally anything to anything. The inventor of such a technology would be a hero right? they'd also make millions nay billions of pounds worldwide selling their product, but what if that person had killed to gain that technology - what would you feel like then? This is the idea behind 'Antitrust' Gary Winston is basically a Bill Gates type character - he runs NURV - the biggest computer technology company ever, think what Microsoft are like now and you've ...  Read the complete review

Think John Grisham’s The Firm with a good-looking geek instead of a Tom Cruise accountant. After tackling bookkeepers Hollywood turns its attention to nerdy computer programmers for its latest heroes. Of course any serious computer anorak knows that Hollywood movies about technology are more often miss than hit: implausible talking computers (War Games, Electric Dreams) or Bill & Ted anarchical hacker types. What lifts Anti-Trust above a run of the mill thriller is the feeling that the writers may have actually read a computer manual - that and the blatant Microsoft bashing. You don’t win any prizes for spotting that the giant software corporation ...  Read the complete review

In exactly one, paper-thin way Peter Howitt's Antitrust succeeds in doing something remarkable: It makes you feel sorry for Bill Gates. You'd think that mustering sympathy for America's most put-upon zillionaire might be as difficult as splitting an atom with a tack hammer. But Howitt and screenwriter Howard Franklin portray Gates as, first, a genius über-geek who considers himself demonized by less successful geeks (a valid point), and second, a megalomaniacal cutthroat drawn so broadly he'd be right at home in a Bond flick. Irritating and obvious in every other way, Howitt's movie takes its title and its narrative thrust from ...  Read the complete review

I enjoyed this movie far more than I thought as I didn't have high expectations going in. The way Antitrust was marketed as a sci fi movie like The Matrix is quite misleading. Despite its techno trappings its a surprisingly old fashioned movie though none the worse for that. Like Enemy of the State its a pleasing echo of the 70s conspiracy film with a lone hero up against the might of a monolithic shadowy corporation who seem to control every aspect of our lives. Our hero is Milo (Ryan Phillipe) an unusually attractive computer genius. (He wears glasses while working just so we know he's, like, really smart.) Milo and his college friend Teddy have ...  Read the complete review

Hollywood traditionally hasn’t done too well when it comes to films with a technical theme. They have to strike the fine line between keeping things simple enough for the general public to understand, while not alienating those who know their stuff by trying to blind the audience with fake science. AntiTrust is refreshingly strong in this respect, getting the balance just about right. Ryan Philippe plays Milo Hoffman, an exceptionally gifted young computing graduate, who goes against the wishes of his closest friends by accepting an offer to join the high profile software company NURV (Never Underestimate Radical Vision!). Instead of working with his ...  Read the complete review