Paranoia
(2013)
Perhaps Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman can only appear together in
not-terribly-good films. Air Force One
isn’t terribly good, and neither is Paranoia.
Aside from a title that promises much but delivers nothing of the sort, the
movie is blandly directed by Robert Luketic, a former-and-still-sometimes romcom
guy who has inadvisedly attempted to make the leap to “serious-minded” fare
with this and the reasonable-but-should-have-been-better 21. Roundly savaged by the critics and a resounding flop, I don’t
think this is quite as bad as has been made out. Paranoia is not unwatchable, but it’s a dumb movie that would
desperately like to be smart and about something. It’s also saddled with an
unmagnetic performance from the Hemsworth boy who’s not Chris, Liam. So it’s
left to Ford and Oldman to do the heavy lifting and attempt to keep down some
really stodgy dialogue.
Perhaps Joseph Finder’s corporate espionage novel is a
superior piece of work, or perhaps the near-decade between publishing and this
adaptation rendered it passé. Screenplay writers Barry L Levy (Vantage Point) and Jason Dean Hall (the
upcoming American Sniper; lets hope
he does a better job than here) have made it all about smart phone technology,
as Oldman’s CEO Nicholas Wyatt blackmails Hemsworth’s low level employee Adam
Cassidy into infiltrating the corporation of Wyatt’s rival and former colleague
Jock Goddard (Ford) and so steal the plans for a new phone. There’s potential
here, and the makers have done their best to talk up the surveillance society
and its deleterious effects; Goddard’s new tech promises to be the ultimate user
device, one that will encourage zero privacy.
But Luketic directs the movie so listlessly it barely has a
pulse. The suggestion of Cassidy under constant watch lack flair, and the logic
of this monitoring capability are conviently forgotten when it suits the
under-exerted plot. Shouldn’t Wyatt be holding all his conversations in his
underpants in a fully debugged environment? If he’s really going around having
people knocked off he ought to be much more careful about what he says to who
and where (it’s no good having a scene where Wyatt warns about careless words
in the presence of a new tailor if he’s showing such disregard the rest of the
time). He installs cameras in Cassidy’s apartment and his dad’s house but
doesn’t seem to have noticed the FBI calling for a chat with Cassidy.
This is also one of those movies where people are capable of
doing magical things with technology; it might as well be an episode of Whiz Kids. Cassidy’s friends are able to
come up with genius inventions at a moment’s notice, while Wyatt can facilitate
Cassidy’s acceptance into his rival’s firm like it’s nothing (that Wyatt is not
suspicious of how easy this is ought to ring alarm bells). If the corporate
side had been convincingly portrayed, this might have ended up closer to the Wall Street vibe it’s clearly angling
for; young wannabe with a blue collar dad (Richard Dreyfuss here, Martin Sheen
there) is manipulated into misdeeds by a Satanic corporate type (Oldman here,
Michael Douglas there) yet we just know he will do the right thing in the end (Cassidy
even spouts indigestible guff like “I
know right from wrong and I’m sorry it took me so long to act on it”).
If Hemsworth is
vacant, love interest Amber Heard isn’t much better; I’ve seen her in any
number of films but she’s so unmemorable I’m never sure if that’s her. Luketic
is obviously under the illusion the pair will fascinate us, since he devotes a
further 10 minutes to their relationship following the climax. Julian McMahon
plays Wyatt’s heavy; it’s a thankless role, and you wonder why both he and Josh
Holloway (as an FBI man; the actor just hasn’t had a decent break post-Lost). Embeth Davidtz fares a little
better, but the only reason for watching this is Oldman and Ford.
Oldman uses his own accent, which makes for a nice change,
particularly when he’s yelling “Put it in
my fucking hand” like he’s Ray Winstone’s bezzie mate. Ford gets a lot of
stick these days for sleepwalking through his roles, but he holds his own here
and, with his curiously bald head, has a distinctive look to back up his steely
business sense. On the technical side, an imaginative director could easily
work with David Tattersall’s cinematography but the poor guy is stuck doing the
most uninteresting things. There’s even a dreary love scene montage. The surveillance
camera POV stuff feels like an afterthought rather than integral (Enemy of the State this is not). Junkie
XL’s score isn’t all that either and the in-action is overlaid with some
irritating dance anthems that only underline Luketic’s disposition towards lukewarm
cheese.
Is Paranoia’s 4%
rating on Rotten Tomatoes deserved? Well, it gives a disproportionate
impression that it is one of the worst movies ever made. It’s just very
average. Coming from a director who is so very average, that shouldn’t be much
of a surprise. It blows its opportunities for corporate intrigue, instead
favouring clumsy plotting and execution. Still, Ford and Oldman keep the tepid
brew just about tolerable.
**1/2
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