Film Review: Antitrust (2001)

Some films look much darker now than they did when released more than two decades ago. Antitrust, a 2001 thriller directed by Peter Howitt, can be seen as an example, because it has taken on a sinister dimension in hindsight, with plot that had been looking as semi-comical Hollywood exaggeration and stuff of marginal conspiracy theories now looking disturbingly like actual news headlines regarding the tech industry's unchecked power and influence.

The film's plot centers on Milo Hoffman, a young programmer who is recruited by Gary Winston, the CEO of NURV, a software corporation. Milo is tasked with developing Synapse, a groundbreaking software product, but he becomes suspicious of the excellent source code that Winston provides him, seemingly when needed most, while refusing to divulge the code's origin. When some of his Winston’s competitors begin to meet suspicious ends, Milo begins to ponder whether his new boss and mentor is actual murderer.

The film is clearly inspired by Bill Gates and Microsoft, with the title being taken from the long antitrust case that the U.S. government had taken against Microsoft, accusing it of anticompetitive practices and forcing users to rely solely on Internet Explorer as a web browser. However, the actual plot is slightly different and posits a nightmarish Orwellian scenario in which a single entity, in this case, a sociopathic Big Tech entrepreneur, would literally take over the world by connecting all communication via a satellite network. This scenario, with the prevalence of smart technology, Starlink, and the immense power and influence of Big Tech and big corporations, looks more credible now than in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

Antitrust represents a trend in Hollywood's initially hostile relation towards the emerging world of cyberspace and IT. The film sees it as a dangerous tool in the hands of unscrupulous people, similar to the 1995 thriller The Net. However, in a schizophrenic way, Hollywood also tries to exploit the popularity of cyberspace among younger viewer demographics by young IT enthusiasts as "cool”, like in Hackers. The scriptwriters recognised the hostility that Bill Gates and his emerging Microsoft empire created among those circles and built the script around it by positing the protagonist against a Gates-like villain.

Treatment of Gates and Microsoft in Antitrust reaches the level of "film a clef," with clear similarities between them and their fictional counterpart, such as the setting in the Pacific Northwest, a huge mansion, an office called "campus," and Tim Robbins working hard to have some sort of physical resemblance to Gates and delivering the best acting performance in the film. However, the film strays from realism with the mere casting of Ryan Philippe, a young heartthrob brought in more for his looks and commercial considerations than his ability to play a young geek.

Things are even worse with the protagonists' female partners, being played by glamorous Claire Forlani and Rachael Leigh Cook, characters that look like Hollywood conventions rather than something connected to real life. Antitrust completely falls apart when the mystery is revealed and becomes a standard and unimaginative conspiracy thriller, with car chases and near-parodic levels of unconvincing plot twists.

There was actually a serious film buried somewhere beneath Antitrust, and it could have been brought to light if its pro-open source message was more explicit and handled in ways different than Hollywood formula. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen and the film sank into mediocrity. Those who watch it now, in the world of Leviathan-like governments, Big Tech corporations and sociopathic egomaniacs running them shape peoples’ lives into Orwellian nightmare, might recognise some of its bits as prophetic, but this isn’t reason enough for Antitrust to become anything more than curious footnote in cinema history.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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