Like “The Net” six years prior, “Antitrust” (2001) mixes turn-of-the-century code theft with cat-and-mouse thrills that date to the beginning of cinema. Thrown in as a spice is a hot young cast of actors we got to know from rom-coms (Rachael Leigh Cook of “She’s All That”) and slashers (Ryan Phillippe of “I Know What You Did Last Summer”). Plus an Evil Bill Gates – Tim Robbins as Gary Winston – makes “Antitrust” a tasty, if not exactly original, concoction.
Vancouver again proves itself a gorgeous shooting location, with a college standing in for the lush campus of NURV, the Apple equivalent that is preparing its new product, Synapse. It’s a system that merges all your devices – computer, phone, TV, etc. This concept was later presented with killer-robot overtones in “Terminator: Genisys,” and of course in real life the merging of devices is now a rather mundane thing.
Trust (and antitrust) issues
In “Antitrust,” this leap forward in tech capabilities is sinister because of deadly corporate games. It would be mere spying in most films, but here code-stealing is not a matter of hacking, it’s a matter of murder and physical theft of discs. This makes the film accessible to more of its 2001 audience. Still, when wunderkind coder Milo (Phillippe) is at the keyboard, what he’s doing rings true.
“Antitrust” (2001)
Director: Peter Howitt
Writer: Howard Franklin
Stars: Ryan Phillippe, Tim Robbins, Rachael Leigh Cook
“Antitrust’s” interest in the digital world is more thematic than logistical. Writer Howard Franklin raises a classic question: Is it better if code is open source, or if it is owned? The movie doesn’t answer the question, but it hints at where it stands since good guy Milo believes in open source and Gary believes in ownership.
Then again, maybe it’s not so clear. In terms of where they stand on murdering people, yes, Milo is the good guy. However, the film (accidentally?) makes a stronger case that ownership is good – not so much in its portrayal of NURV, but in the portrayal of Milo’s friends who form their own start-up rather than joining NURV (which wants to hire at least one of Milo’s friends, Yee Jee Tso’s Teddy).
Teddy accepts venture capital for his garage-based enterprise; obviously, the venture folks are looking to make money, not to buy code that they’ll then give out for free. In the real world, there’s something to be said for how money motivates achievement, but also something to be said for the altruism of giving code away for free, thus expanding the pool of people who can further advance it.
In “Antitrust” — and as is often the case in reality — the young geniuses are not in a financial position to work for free, and we wouldn’t want to lose their innovations.
Control of information
Franklin also brings up another point that rings even truer today: NURV has its hands in many other companies via partnerships or outright ownership. So a whistleblower couldn’t necessarily spill the beans to a TV news station; they’d want to make sure to go to a station not under the NURV banner.
“Antitrust” isn’t equipped to dig into the question of monopolies (or near-monopolies, which is usually what people mean). But it can’t be denied that some major corporations wield a lot of control over information. Not so much the dissemination of information, but rather the presentation of what’s true (or “true”).
However, the writer does a great job with the conundrum represented by the title’s second meaning: Who can Milo trust? We go deep into “Antitrust” before getting solid fixes on several characters; the twists are satisfying and believable.
Peter Howitt (“Sliding Doors”) knows how to direct potentially convoluted plots with zest. Though you wouldn’t want to come to “Antitrust” for the action – an enemy at one point taunts Milo for temporarily acting like he’s the hero of “Mission: Impossible III” – it is suspenseful. The NURV campus is pretty yet foreboding, including a mysterious building that’s under construction. It’s enjoyable to watch Milo skulk about.
Howitt and Franklin dress up an old suspense structure – and familiar tropes — with loyalty twists and a forward-looking sheen. While the computers are of prior iterations, “Antitrust’s” moral and legal questions remain relevant a quarter-century later.