Paranoia - Review

‘Paranoia’ (Rated M)

OLDMAN GOES MEAN, FORD GOES BALD AND LUKETIC GOES FAMILIAR

Film theorists say that there are a small set number of plots or story-arcs and most films fit within one of these templates.

One of the most popular and regularly used story formulas is the tale of a young, naive wunderkind with a specific talent and potential who is given an opportunity to play in the big league and is taken under the wing of the key power figure of that particular company or industry. The fresh-faced kid rises to the top of the game and gets caught up in corruption and corporate greed, usually at the hands of their mentor/employer.

The new film ‘Paranoia’ from Australian director Robert Luketic (‘Legally Blonde’, ‘Killers’, ‘21’) follows this exact trajectory, with one small twist - there are two mentors/employers/key power figures.

New rising pretty boy Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games, Expendables 2, and the real brother of Thor, just quietly) stars as Adam Cassidy, a young and talented program developer, specialising in mobile technology, who works at the lowest level of Fortune 500 technology development company Wyatt Corp. Adam is struggling on minimum wage to support himself and his sick, widowed, blue collar father (Richard Dreyfus) whose wife passed away when Adam was young - cue emotional gravitas and character motivation. Adam clearly possesses the talent and a strong desire to escape his current life and be financially, professionally and socially successful but of course fails to recognise the things he should hold most dear - cue violins. After a failed presentation to the head of the company Nicholas Wyatt (Gary Oldman, in hard assed Brit mode), Adam mysteriously steals the company credit card, which is never explained, and parties the night away with his geeky friends (aka: ‘nerdburgers’). This act of fraud of course lands Adam in hot water, and consequently Wyatt blackmails him to infiltrate and steal corporate secrets from rival company Icon, led by Wyatt’s former partner and now bitter enemy Jock Goddard (a bald, snarling Harrison Ford). Greed, betrayal and a slick soundtrack ensue.

On that note, the film is very slick and glossy, which suits the rich, high-flying world this kid is caught up in, but does little to hide the fact that there is no substance underneath. All the performances are good and it’s fun seeing Ford and Oldman go head to head again (after ‘Air Force One’), as they try to ‘out-mean’ other, but there is absolutely nothing new in this. Its predictability, familiarity and light touch to dark, gritty themes prevents it from being particularly engaging.

The main problem I have with it though, isn’t just that Luketic is using a very common story template, but that he himself has done this story before. The 2008 gambling thriller, ‘21’, had exactly the same base story: young misguided, mathematics genius turns professional gambler under the guidance of a senior mentor (Kevin Spacey), gets caught up in the high-flying Vegas life style, gets betrayed and then uses his smarts to turn the tables. ‘Paranoia’ pretty much follows ‘21’, beat by beat, with the same slick delivery and character types.

Luketic is a confident and very capable film maker who rose up the ranks after his 2001 hit ‘Legally Blonde’ (you know a film is a phenomenon when it gets a stage musical adaptation), but after lesser films ‘The Ugly Truth’, ‘Killers’, and ‘21’, he really needs to find some meatier source material.

‘Paranoia’ is easy watching and it moves along at a decent pace, so it provides an hour and a half of entertainment for the undemanding, but it’s so familiar and predictable that you spend the entire film comparing it to ‘21’ and fantasizing about how good a film Luketic could make with a stronger, more original premise. My rating: 4/10.

‘Paranoia’ (Rated M) is released in Australian theatres on 5 September.

By Dane Hiser
@DaneHiser on Twitter
www.danehiser.wordpress.com