Review: Blackhat

​Michael Mann's globetrotting, cyber crime drama Blackhat culminates in a beautifully wrought set piece in Jakarta's Papua Square, where convicted American cybercriminal Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) is at last face-to-face with the villainous Rat (Yorick van Wageningen) whose malware attacks have caused much consternation throughout the film. They shield themselves amidst the costumed bodies on parade, though none in the throng seem particularly alarmed at the sight of the towering Hemsworth brandishing a gun in plain sight.

Though given a suspenseful prologue, the showdown itself is a quick and brutal affair. Rat himself proclaims his hands were made for typing, not killing, and his end is as whimpering as the one had by Live Free of Die Hard's Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant). In the shadow of Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons' silky criminals, Olyphant's Gabriel may seem a boy amongst giants but, in retrospect, may actually be the franchise's best villain. Bruce Willis' John McClane was genuinely at a loss with how to deal with a man who could manipulate all the systems with a mere touch of a button, and Gabriel's defeat was very much dictated by McClane having to live to die another day.

Thomas Gabriel was very much on the mind contemplating the character of Rat, who does not exist in a film where cars launch themselves at helicopters or fighter jets attack semi-trucks. Rat is in a Michael Mann film and, as such, should act as a foil to, or counterpart of, Hemsworth's Hathaway in the same way that Heat's Al Pacino and Robert De Niro and Collateral's Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are two sides of the same coin. Unlike Thomas Gabriel, Rat exists as a ghost in the machine for nearly two hours before he exchanges any dialogue with Hathaway, which hampers the dynamic between the two.

Much of Blackhat shouldn't work - Rat is kept too long in the shadows to be a formidable enough figure; the romance between Hathaway and Lien (Wei Tang), sister to cyber defense officer Captain Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang), who also happens to be an old friend of Hathaway's, is too rushed and therefore falls just short of its full impact. It has all the elements of a Michael Mann film without any of those elements being fully realised. It is, in many ways, the flimsiest of Mann's films but is a strong example of how his aesthetic style elevates a rather simple story.

At his best, Mann marries style and substance, action and introspection. His characters are often both still and in transit, moving through the landscape in cars or helicopters or speedboats, chasing forces that are often beyond their control. There is always something in the air that evades articulation, which is why the looks exchanged between Hathaway and Lien as they sit surrounded by the enamel reds and jade greens of a restaurant in L.A.'s Koreatown speak more to their emotional connection than any line of dialogue could. It is why the drive in which Hathaway is mesmerised by Lien's neck and shoulder and the image of the kissing lovers bathed in a bluish green light is more romantic than the actual scene in which they make love. It is why the bluish dots of a server room and an aerial shot of city buildings illuminated at night can be married to the electronic beats and pulses that adorn and inform our everyday lives.

Mood matters for Mann, and his attention to it provides Blackhat with an energy and propulsion that the story, on paper, does not actually warrant. Blackhat is nothing if not a watchable film with a lot of very sleek and attractive moving parts. Hemsworth, blonder and bluer-eyed than ever, is an arresting presence and imbues Hathaway with a melancholy befitting many of Mann's antiheroes.

Blackhat

Directed by: Michael Mann

Written by: Morgan Davis Foehl

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Leehom Wang, Wei Tang, Holt McCallany, Ritchie Coster, Yorick van Wangeningen, Christian Borle, John Ortiz