“Paranoia” (2013) stars the unnecessarily pretty Liam Hemsworth and Amber Heard, supported by the appropriately grizzled Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, and Richard Dreyfuss, and the beautifully well-preserved Embeth Davidtz. Since this bomb pretended to be about all the things happening under the surface, but consisted solely of surface, it’s worth a word or two. Hemsworth is prettier than Heard. Just sayin ... and that confuses the question of the intended target audience just a bit. OK, maybe it’s just my age speaking, but I think there’s a background reason Heard never shared the frame with any other woman. She just can’t take the competition. She’s like the early Uma Thurman. It’s obvious she’s supposed to be “the beauty” but the pieces don’t all fit ... yet. I expect, like Uma, she will achieve perfect luminosity in about a decade or more. Until then, I’m afraid we’re going to have to get used to this kind of well-painted dreck. Here, even the background “chick-friend” on Hemsworth’s original tech-team is more attractive (by far) – sigh. It shouldn’t be this difficult, especially in Hollywood, of all places. I rented this because of the star power in the lower-decks. Ford, Oldman, Davidtz, Dreyfuss and, startlingly, Josh Holloway (dressing up a throwaway role), are all wasted here. They’re the Renaissance gilt frame on a child’s crayon refrigerator art. Inside this, by turns, silly and formulaic movie is a great concept gasping for air and clawing its way to the surface ... but it never makes it. The present concept reads: young genius, made cynical by immorally greedy business executives, gets trapped into the dangerous middle ground between two titans struggling over old grievances. Kid just wants to get his ‘own’ and get out, but the threats against his loved ones force him to out-think them both. The no-longer-so-innocent “little guy” forces “big business” to eat crow with the help of “big government” (in the form of the FBI), and finally wins back “the girl” and start his own business (credits roll over “big kiss” in foyer of new office building). Aaaaaahhhh! (goes the crowd), guy gets girl, evil businessmen go to jail, and all is well with the world (trigger gag reflex). Except, only the mafia works this way and no cynical 27 year old tech-genius is this naive (or looks this PRETTY) all the time. Sloppy writing often depends on the leads being galactically stupid for 8-9 tenths of the story and then flipping the “genius” switch right at the freaking end, just in time to save the day. Usually, it’s a 60-30 min turning point in a 90 min movie. Here, they waited until c. 15 min’s to the end ... that’s a lot of stupidity with very little pay-off. What would’ve made this worth seeing (and paying actual money for) and even remove the need for the idiot-savant switch, was a stronger character in the central role. Don’t blame Liam, this is the writer’s fault. There were several scenes where the sort of sharp give-and-take verbal jousting of the Golden Era of movies was called for ... and nothing. Hemsworth’s character is a poser (and that IS his fault) but needed to be more knowing and aggressive. He’s a patsy just out of Sunday School when he should’ve been a shark-in-training. It’s more likely a self-centered hustler will soften under the pressure of real possibility, than that a clueless, softy will rise to the occasion. In any other movie, much less real life, this guy would’ve been tossed under a bus in the opening credits. “Side Effects” with Jude Law is the kind of story to which this one should’ve aspired. This one only aspired to make a buck off of name recognition. In the end, NO one will put this stinker on their resume.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 03:16:49 +0000
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