Director’s Success, Studio’s Failure

What is Blackhat and why don’t most of us know about it? The term “blackhat” refers to a hacker who breaks into computer systems with malicious intent. A “whitehat” is one who also breaks into computers but whose motives are benign. The term, of course, derives from B westerns. Blackhat is a potential Hollywood blockbuster that failed so spectacularly at the box office earlier this year that it was not screened theatrically in Australia and has gone straight to DVD.

The reason why films, often very good films, don’t find audiences is one of the mysteries of the industry. Why did The Last Valley (1971) or Cross of Iron (1977) fail when they are among the best films of the last century? This time with a 17-million-dollar picture at stake there was an inquiry. It found that the marketing was pitched to the wrong audience. Not enough had been made of the quirky computer hacking, the deft characterisations, the gentle love story and the adroit plot twists. Failures of this sort from executives who don’t understand their “product” are all too common in the creative arts.

Usually I’m not very interested in current big-budget blockbusters potential or real, but Blackhat was different. The film is directed by Michael Mann, responsible for such masterpieces as The Last of the Mohicans, Heat and The Insider. It stars Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, best known for Thor, and most interestingly the Chinese actress Tang Wei. Her casting in an American film was part of a story I had been following since she was banned by the Chinese authorities because of the sex scenes that were an integral part of her brilliant performance in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. The breach has been patched up now but it could have ruined her career. According to reports from Chinese friends, Tang Wei handled the situation well. She took out Hong Kong citizenship, learnt Cantonese, and has appeared with great success in a series of romantic dramas and comedies about which I hope to write soon.

It is not surprising that Michael Mann cast Tang Wei in a high-tech thriller. Another rebel against the Chinese authorities, the legendary actress Gong Li (notable in Farewell My Concubine and Raise the Red Lantern), had been a great success playing the enigmatic love interest in Miami Vice, and Mann clearly enjoys filming Asian ladies. He also likes using talented Chinese men. Wang Leehom, also from Lust, Caution, appears as Tang Wei’s brother and for a while one wondered if Tony Leung, the hero/villain of the earlier film, was going to turn up as the mysterious super hacker. He didn’t. Viola Davis does appear, however, to great effect as a veteran FBI agent. A distinguished actress, she is given the full Mann treatment, with telling close-ups at the right moment to enable her to project just the right gravitas.

Blackhat opens with a tour de force: a montage showing a computer break-in on a nuclear plant in Hong Kong that intercuts between the digital technologies to a realistically staged implosion. At first with the powerful score assaulting the viewers’ ears it seems like purest science fiction. And indeed the sequence has been compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Mann is known to be a fan of Stanley Kubrick. But then you realise it is all too realistic. In fact much of the film is based on real-life disasters and a mysterious operation mounted against Iran’s nuclear program about which America and Israel are still being very discreet.

After a sequence showing the Mercantile Trade Exchange being hacked, the film moves into familiar territory. Captain Chen Dawai (Wang Leehom) is ordered to find those responsible for the attacks. He enlists the aid of his sister Chen Lien (Tang Wei) a networking engineer. They team up with Agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis) of the FBI. Chen Dawai reveals the code for the RAT (remote access tool) was written by himself and Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), his college roommate and friend, now serving a sentence for computer crimes. He gets the FBI to arrange for his friend’s release from prison so he can help them track down the hackers.

Mann and his co-writer Morgan Davis Foehl avoid the usual clichés of this kind of crime movie—one having to prove himself to the others, professional jealousy and so on. They all quickly become colleagues and friends. The romance between Hathaway and Chen Lien is touching and believable. According to experts invited to preview the film, the hacking is on the whole authentic—not surprising as Mann hired real computer hackers, some of whom had actually served time, to coach the cast.

Hathaway’s ability to take on the truly loathsome villains physically is neatly explained by his time in prison. Chris Hemsworth is often disparaged because he made his name as the superhero Thor; usually by critics who ignore how well he performed under Kenneth Branagh’s direction in the first film of the series. For this role he has acquired a New York accent and, along with the toughness, a gentleness that makes the love story work.

The directorial style is vintage Michael Mann. He relishes getting his performers to immerse themselves in the world he creates in front of the cameras. By the end of the film you are convinced the characters can write hacker code, switch money around and play the hacker villains at their own game. There is a gritty realism too when Hathaway insists on removing the contaminated hard drives from the nuclear plant, a scene that elicited a nod of approval from the specialists. Computer analysis is not always flashing screens and keyboards.

Blackhat is also film-making that in best Citizen Kane style requires viewers to look and listen intently. Indeed in Mann’s best work spectators experience something close to visual overload. His editing is often frenetic. He is famous for shooting scenes from every possible angle with multiple cameras then cutting it together to achieve greater momentum. When it will help an actor’s performance he will operate the camera himself. Reportedly Mann shot 60 per cent of Heat. At the same time he achieves images of great beauty. Shimmering cityscapes abound, often observed by his characters in moments of reflection. He clearly loves taking long shots over water. Vivid colours assault the eye. Although there is a great deal of documentary realism in Mann’s work, even when responding to multiple locations as he does here the film creates a world of its own.

The elaborately staged gunfights have a visceral quality that places the viewer in the action. American commentators who tend to know perhaps too much about such things have pointed out that when a character fires a gun in a Mann film we see the whole experience: the aiming, the sound and the clatter as the shells are expelled. Of course, as the experts in computer crime pointed out, happily their investigations are not as hectic as this but there is no reason to assume this will not always be true. In many ways Blackhat is a disturbing cautionary tale. And in fairness the violence is never gratuitous; disturbing, exciting even, but always dramatically motivated and ultimately tragic.

Mann could have spent a little more time on his characters. They are all well written and his cast make the most of every detail the script and direction give them, but personally I wanted more. Perhaps in getting the film ready for a January release Mann allowed himself to be rushed and there are some grace notes in his archives. If so it is to be hoped that they will be included in future special editions.

It is a pity studio blundering has prevented Blackhat from being viewed theatrically in Australia. Still, if you have a decent-size screen, viewing the film at home can be a powerful experience that will take over your afternoon or evening.