Antitrust (2001)

Director:

Peter Howitt

Writer (WGA):

Howard Franklin (written by)

Release Date:

12 January 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

Truth can be dangerous... Trust can be deadly.

Plot:

A computer programmer's dream job at a hot Portland-based firm turns nightmarish when he discovers his boss has a secret and ruthless means of dispatching anti-trust problems.

Plot Keywords:

Job | Computer | Genius | Boss | Computer Programmer

Awards:

2 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Ryan Phillippe	...	Milo Hoffman
Rachael Leigh Cook	...	Lisa Calighan
Claire Forlani	...	Alice Poulson
Tim Robbins	...	Gary Winston
Douglas McFerran	...	Bob Shrot
Richard Roundtree	...	Lyle Barton
Tygh Runyan	...	Larry Banks
Yee Jee Tso	...	Teddy Chin
Nate Dushku	...	Brian Bissel
Ned Bellamy	...	Phil Grimes
Tyler Labine	...	Redmond
Scott Bellis	...	Randy
David Lovgren	...	Danny
Zahf Paroo	...	Desi (as Zahf Hajee)
Jonathon Young	...	Stinky

Also Known As:

> Antitrust < (USA) (alternative spelling)
Conspiracy.com (Europe: English title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some violence and brief language.

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | SDDS

Certification:

Malaysia:U | Portugal:M/12 | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | Netherlands:16 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Finland:K-11 | France:U | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIA | Iceland:L | New Zealand:M | Norway:11 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:12 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #37330)

Filming Locations:

Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

The jacket number (and reference in the NURV computer database) for Richard Roundtree's character, Lyle Burton, is ND47. The number 47 occurs frequently in science fiction (most notably in Star Trek) due to a "joke proof" written by Donald Bentley in 1964, showing all numbers to be equal to 47.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Milo would not have been able to enter the Department of Justice Building without Lyle Barton knowing; the security officials would have informed Barton of Milo's entrance, and Barton would have had to clear Milo.

Quotes:

Milo: Now I'm going to go out on a limb here because there's a very good chance you're not going to believe a word of what I'm about to tell you.
Bob Shrot: You'd be surprised what I'd believe about these people.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Film Geek (2005)

Soundtrack:

Cocktails

About as unrealistic and irrelevant as "All the President's Men".

OK, make no mistake, this movie was made to convey a message. If criticised in terms of, say, similarity to "the Firm", or "yet another cyber thriller", then you really missed the point. The message is pretty blunt, and guaranteed to anger a certain large corporation. (This is not an anti-corporate movie, it is anti- a ~particular~ corporation, and if you can't guess which one, maybe you should go back to exploring the Kalahari or whatever you've been doing for the last ten years.) This corporation has been known to spend extraordinary resources on PR (including, for example, bribing journalists and college professors), so almost certainly some of the comments on this message board will be produced by that corporation and should be read in that light.

Second, while murder is a bit over the top, pretty well all the other crimes committed by the large corporation in this movie are things of which the real corporation has been seriously accused, been found to be planning, or in some cases, convicted; yet in every case managing to escape with fines or compensation payments much smaller than the profits they made from the crime. That is why we hate them so much, and why this movie was made. It's also obvious why the motif of murder was added: some of the technical details of why their actions are pure evil are difficult for a non-techie to understand, so to make the movie accessible to a wider audience, they added a more blatant crime (plus pyrotechnic special effects, a tense chase scene, love interest, etc).

Thirdly, it is not a futuristic movie, it is present day; nothing in this movie is more than about 1 or 2 years in the future, at most, and most of it is happening now or happened several years ago.

Fourthly, technical realism: while some of the tech stuff is rubbish (hey, it's a movie!), the effort put into realism is dramatically good compared to information technology in any other movie I have ever seen. When we see IP's, they are actual IPs, but martian (I guess they don't want geeks going home and whois-ing them!), the code is all real code: some HTML, some C++, real scripting, but mostly VB (a language the certain large corporation is known to use a lot). The algorithms they discuss improving are even algorithms the product would really require! Not only that, the product is frighteningly similar to the large corporation's actual current development path!

So, if you walked away from this movie thinking "just for geeks" or "totally unrealistic", you need to give yourself a good hard slap, wake up and see what is really going on in the world around you. This movie was about as unrealistic and irrelevant as "All the President's Men".

Oh, by the way, I better say that all the above comments are only my personal opinions, in case they try to sue me, because they do do stuff like that.