Antitrust (2001)

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.

Director:

Peter Howitt

Writer:

Howard Franklin

Stars:

Ryan Phillippe, Tim Robbins, Rachael Leigh Cook

2 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
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

Storyline

This movie is the fictional story of computer programming genius Milo Hoffman after graduating from Stanford and getting out into the competitive world of computer software. In his contemplation of where to begin his career, he is contacted by Gary Winston whose character is loosely based on Bill Gates. Winston is the CEO of a company called NURV, and they are on the brink of completing the global communication's system, Synapse. They need Hoffman to help them meet their launch date, so after much thought and with the full support of his girlfriend Alice, he accepts the job. Tragedy soon after strikes and Milo becomes suspicious of the company he has been wrapped up in. He learns that trusting anyone could be a mistake, and that nothing is as it seems.

---

Plot Keywords:

startup company | job | computer | communications | genius | 

---

Taglines:

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

---

Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some violence and brief language

Details

Official Sites:

MGM

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 January 2001 (USA)

Also Known As:

Antitrust

Filming Locations:

Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$30,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$5,486,209, 14 January 2001, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$10,965,209, 4 February 2001

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$6,867,516, 31 December 2001

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Hyde Park Entertainment, Industry Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

DTS SDDS Dolby SR

Color:

Color (DeLuxe)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Similarity between NURV and Microsoft : The Gary Winston's Right-Hand man is not a blatant geek, and is bald...much like Steve Ballmer of Microsoft

---

Goofs

The surveillance recording of Teddy's killing does not match the event as we saw it earlier.

---

Quotes

Larry Banks: We don't take anything seriously, unless it's on a hard drive.

---

Crazy Credits

Closing disclaimer: Stanford University has not endorsed this motion picture and no filming took place on the Stanford campus. There are a number of other entities and persons with names which may be the same or similar to those used in this motion picture. However, this motion picture is entirely fictional and (except for minor incidental references) is not intended to depict or refer to any other existing entities or persons and any such references are purely coincidental.

---

Alternate Versions

The R1 DVD contains all the deleted scenes mentioned above, except for the "Sleeping with the enemy" sex scene.

---

Connections

Featured in Beyond Clueless (2014)

---

Soundtracks

Forbidden City
Written by Joe Strummer
Performed by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros (as Joe Strummer and Mescaleros)
Courtesy of Universal International Music, B.V. and Hellcat Records
Universal International Music, B.V. is under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User Reviews

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.