Antitrust
Young computer programmer Milo Hoffman (Ryan Phillippe) is a genius. We know this because everyone keeps telling him he is, over and over, including founder and president of NURV Gary Winston (Tim Robbins), a Bill Gates type who recruits Milo to join his team and help solve a crucial programming problem before the launch of his new project. Since we see little evidence of this genius ourselves, we’ll have to take their word for it. Anyway, soon after moving onto the NURV campus with his girlfriend Alice (Claire Forlani), Milo’s best friend and former programming partner Teddy (Yee Jee Tso) is murdered. Milo quickly begins to suspect that Teddy was murdered by goons at NURV in order to steal his programming breakthroughs. Before you know it, Milo is breaking into top secret NURV buildings and trying to find out Winston’s involvement in the nefarious goings-on. What he finds confirms his worst fears, and more.
The movie’s pacing seems all wrong for high suspense. We’re pretty much shown the whole secret a beat or two before Milo finds out, so a large part of the paranoia is lost on us. It’s as if director Peter Howitt was afraid we wouldn’t get it if he didn’t come out and spell it out for us. (Milo might be a genius, the moviemakers seem to be telling us, but we, the audience, certainly aren’t.) The entire plot is so carefully calculated — every detail revealed early on is simply a tool used to be used later on — that we feel claustrophobic with how little breathing room there is for any of the characters to be, well, characters.
The problems with Antitrust are many, but that doesn’t mean it’s no fun to watch. It is fun, if for no other reason than we get to see Tim Robbins imitating Bill Gates.
by Derek Neff