Antitrust (2001) Reviews

• Not "The Net 2"

  Darth_Tirranus2001-01-14

  When I first saw the preview for Anti-Trust, I thought 2 things. 1) It was a not-so-disguised movie about Microsoft. 2) It was probably "The Net 2." It looked like another computer-based movie that would be as realistic as "Hackers," but with a more obvious plot. From the first 30 seconds of the preview you can pretty much tell that the open-source sidekick is marked for death and Bill Gates...I mean Gary Winston was a criminal mastermind who will do anything to get ahead in business. I'd happy to say that while the first half of the movie went without any surprises, there are enough plot twists in the 2nd half to keep you guessing who's on who's side. Tim Robbins and Ryan Philippe both give good performances, and nobody seems out of place talking about technology. It's not the best movie I've seen this year, but it definately blew away my expectations.

• It took the time to be accurate - but at what cost?

  delahoc2004-11-14

  This is one of the few movies about computers, programming and those that make it happen that actually demonstrates that at least a little research was done by the writer/s. Not only is the script filled with real technical lingo (IP addresses, LZ compression, etc), but it actually uses it all in the correct context. (For examples of correct lingo in incorrect usage, see films like 'Jurassic Park'). So in that sense at least, the writer did their job. Alas, in other areas they let the team down. I like the basic premise. Tim Robbins (Gary Winston) as an evil Bill Gates (Gary Winston = William Gates, GW=WG) is certainly an idea that appeals to me (as a an anti-Microsofter from way back). There are even a number of little in-jokes through the plot that pick out the Gates-Microsoft connection (the artwork screens in Winston's house, a character called Redmond, the Dept of Justice accusations, etc). And it was so nice to see so many computers on screen, and not one Windows window anywhere. Into all of this comes Ryan Phillipe as a hotshot programmer - who, as far as I can see, never actually programs anything. He stares at a lot of code on screens, and types in some pseudo-unix commands, but I can't recall him actually coding anything. As a geek he looks the part, and certainly has the introvert/social inept bit down pat. But even geeks have other emotions. And how the hell does a guy like him get a girl like Claire Forlani?? Surely that must have sent alarm bells ringing for him early on? Yes, even allowing for the plot twist half way through, guys like him just don't get girls like her - because they're rarely out of the garage. Rachel Leigh Cook - stunning, and wasted. There was so much more scope for her in this. And the final twist with her character at the end just was not believable. I'm glad to finally see a movie in which computers and computer programming are an essential device actually treat them with some accuracy. It's fantastic to have a fantasy in which an evil Bill Gates actually gets whats coming to him. All it needed was a little more character injected into the three main young characters and it would have worked perfectly.

• Young computer programmer discovers inter workings of corporate software giant

  lmlftl_aml2005-07-17

  This movie is interesting on a surface level. It has lots of action and suspense to engage even passive viewers. Antitrust contains lots of ideas that are specific to the software industry however. The most significant theme of this movie is not one that seeks to implicate major corporations in illegal activities; it is instead one that blatantly discusses the idea of open source code sharing. For those of you who do not know what this is, it is the free sharing of computer programing code. This movie is designed to entertain though. It makes corporate software companies look like organized crime rings. This is simply Hollywood's appeal to its audiences.This is a good movie for all audiences; however a Linux user would particularly enjoy it.

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

  Roger-1412001-07-29

  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.

• Tim Robbins- He is an actor who is a head and shoulder above the rest.

  g_gib232001-01-13

  I saw "Antitrust" today the 1:15 matinee. I loved it. I became acquainted with Tim Robbins through 5 copies of" Top Gun." I will not give away the plot or read the last page of the book, but for those of you who like "Arlington Road" ,"Antitrust" may be a good sequel. So this movie does not win rave reviews. Movies are entertaining , some of them are informative. This one says that without computer geeks not many of us could not enjoy this modern day tool. Back in the 70's I thought the electric typewriter with a ball going across the page was exciting.