Rent Blackhat (2015)
2.7 of 5 from 261 ratings
2h 7min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Chris Hemsworth stars as Nick Hathaway, a gifted hacker currently serving a lengthy prison sentence. When a Hong Kong nuclear plant goes into meltdown after its security is penetrated, Chinese army cybersecurity captain Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) offers his old college roommate a deal: help identify and apprehend the culprit in exchange for his own freedom. What follows is a frenetic, globe-trotting race against time to avert disaster, fraught with hidden agendas and ever-shifting loyalties.
- Actors:
- Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Wei Tang, Leehom Wang, Holt McCallany, Andy On, Ritchie Coster, Christian Borle, John Ortiz, Yorick Van Wageningen, Tyson Chak, Brandon Molale, Danny Burstein, Archie Kao, Abhi Sinha, Jason Butler Harner, Manny Montana, Spencer Garrett, Shi Liang, Kan Mok
- Directors:
- Michael Mann
- Producers:
- Jon Jashni, Michael Mann, Thomas Tull
- Writers:
- Morgan Davis Foehl
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Thrillers
- Collections:
- All You Need to Know About Dump Month Movies, Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: Viola Davis, A Brief History of Film...
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 22/06/2015
- Run Time:
- 133 minutes
- Languages:
- English Audio Description DTS 2.0, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French DTS 5.1, German DTS 5.1, Hindi DTS 5.1, Italian DTS 5.1, Spanish DTS 5.1
- Subtitles:
- Arabic, Danish, Dutch, English Hard of Hearing, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.40:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- The Cyber Threat
- On Location Around The World
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 27/11/2023
- Run Time:
- 134 minutes
- Languages:
- English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- DVD Regions:
- Region 2
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.39:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Both the US and international versions of the film
- Brand new audio commentary by critics Bryan Reesman and Max Evry
- Firewall - brand new video interview with cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh
- Zero Day Threat - brand new video interview with production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas
- The Cyber Threat, On Location Around the World and Creating Reality - three archival behind-the-scenes featurettes on the making of the film
- Image gallery
- Disc 1:
- This disc includes the main feature
- Disc 2:
- This disc includes the following:
- Blu-ray version: Director's Cut
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Reviews (4) of Blackhat
A really good return to form by Mann, despite some narrative issues. A solid & gripping film - Blackhat review by TB
Michael Mann is an iconic filmmaker. Since he first started producing films, graduating from TV, you know exactly what you are going to get: stunningly photographed scenes, meticulously researched scripts & truly believable characters who are intensely driven, relentless individuals set on a collision course with each other. The absolute nadir of this, as well as one of the best films ever made & which is still consistently mentioned as having one of the greatest scenes in movie history, is Heat.
Unfortunately, amongst the incredible filmography, including The Last of the Mohicans & Collateral, he has also produced some real duds. Public Enemies was absolutely atrocious: the nonsensical & idiotic choice to film it in the highest quality, crystal clear HD, making it look like it was shot in the present day, even though everything else was perfectly designed to look like the early 30's, was almost as stupid as the sound quality, by far the worst I have ever heard on any Hollywood movie. Miami Vice was another film which, given it was based on Mann's own TV series, was also terrible: a script/story so stodgy & all over the place, it was almost impossible to follow.
The reason I mention those two films is because, for many people, Blackhat would also belong with them. When it was released, it was dismissed by many people as another misfire, mainly due to the fact that it's storyline was basically hackers trying to outwit different country’s secret services, as well as each other. Chris Hemsworth was also seen as a strange choice, given that most people's idea of cyber criminals are obese, pale-skinned losers who live in their mother's basements. But this is a really good, interesting & beautiful looking film, even if it does lose it's way towards the end.
Everything I mentioned at the start about what you expect from Mann's films is here, but this also is a lot lighter in tone in many ways. As much as there is a lot of detail to take in, you never get lost in the narrative. There is also extremely well-written characters, brilliantly acted. Viola Davis, who takes any material she is given & elevates it as well as the film, is solidly dependable; as is Ritchie Coster who is genuinely scary as the psychopathic & dead-eyed mercenary.
For me however, the stand-out is Tang Wei. After her incredible debut in Lust, Caution & subsequent idiotic banning of her from the Asian entertainment industry, she returns with a beautifully realised & magnetically played part, so much more than the damsel in distress, eye-candy role which she could do easily have been cast as. Chen is a highly capable, driven & fiercely intelligent woman, who also is allowed to show intense vulnerability for both the losses she experiences, as well as the fear she has for the people who are trying to kill her. Crucially, she is also not sidelined by the narrative as the film progresses.
Unfortunately, the film does lose its focus towards the end. After a perfect & magnetic build-up, the film does lose steam & momentum, almost like Mann & writer Morgan Davis Foehl simply could not agree on how the story should finish & then cobbled together this ending. Mann himself said as much in later interviews (“The script wasn’t ready.”) But despite this, I cannot deny I had a blast. I really was gripped, excited & hooked by the story. And as much as there was issues with the narrative, I still highly recommend this.
Finally, if possible, see this in remastered 4K. It looks absolutely flawless.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.
Justified poor reviews - Blackhat review by CP Customer
It's a shame because this script has plenty of potential as is the case with some of the characters presented to you in the first 30 minutes but it is like a flightless bird that never gets off the ground and your left feeling unfulfilled.
0 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Pretty darn good! - Blackhat review by JG
Whilst not Mann’s best movie, it’s still pretty darn good.
Characterisation and plot are really secondary, as they were for Raymond Chandler, but what impresses is style. Now this is no glib matter, it’s how artists make beautiful works. And it is the formal mastery that makes this such a good film - if you have the concentration and sensibility to appreciate it.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.
Critic review
Blackhat review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso
Michael Mann’s Blackhat is a cyber thriller that may be the most grounded of the genre. It doesn’t attempt to conceive extra levels of ridiculousness in trying to make hacking seem more deadly and sexy than it really appears. There are no live feeds of people being murdered with poisoned administered via page views. There are no hacking attempts to sabotage traffic lights, cars or microwaves. The targets are legitimate, the hacking is somewhat believable and not a single element of this scheme feels laughably exaggerated. Mann has managed to ground the idea of hacking without the needless bells and whistles of shirking reality. Which merely proves my theory: cyber thrillers do not make for exciting movies.
In between long strings of exposition and staring at computer screens, Mann attempts to build some spectacle from the inner workings of computers. Using computer graphics, we zoom inside the processors and mainframes where the inner lights signal the beginning of digital intrusion. These sequences resemble those medical series on cable where animation displays what is going on right now in somebody’s body experiencing pain. All these scenes need is some narration to describe just what is going on which would actually be rather helpful to the audience. Mann either wants to dazzle us with flashy visuals of technology or he just wants to prove to us how much he knows about this stuff.
The intricacies of computer hacking, though still dull when amped up by CGI, were still far more intriguing than the story. It’s another hacker terrorist plot in which a group of bad people conspire to terrorize the world and make a lot of money. They hack into a Chinese nuclear power plant and cause an explosion of radioactivity. Seeking to squash this kerfuffle quickly, the Chinese government teams up with the FBI to beat the hackers with a hacker. The imprisoned hacker released for the purpose of solving this mess is Hathaway. He’s played by a big and beefy Chris Hemsworth because you couldn’t have some intense action with a hacker too shrimpy or overweight. Also, just like the computer innard scenes, it gives the audience something nice to look at in all the tunnel vision.
Perhaps the fatal flaw of Blackhat is that it spends so much time trying to make sure all the pieces fit that it forgets to keep the attention of the audience. The characters just sort of exist for the purpose of rattling off information and dialogue. There is a love story weaved in with Hathaway and an agent’s sister, but it feels just as forced and planned with hardly any chemistry between the two. Another key aspect that seems entirely overlooked in all the running and gunning is any questioning of our society and how fragile it has become with easy access to total control. There’s no time for that when there are car bombings, gun fights and knife play to be had in an attempt to wake you up for the second act.
Blackhat is at least capable in its attempts at being a thorough cyber thriller, but it becomes too obsessed with its own craftsmanship. The drama is just not there in a movie that’s wall-to-wall exposition, action scenes and flashy zooms on working computer parts. It’s a film that seems entirely made for those who focus on the little details that need to be pointed out or corrected when assembling a story. At the sacrifice of real character development and an intriguing commentary, Blackhat might just satisfy that crowd. Or anger that crowd in which case makes the movie a banal waste of time for everyone.