Blackhat (2015)

A furloughed convict and his American and Chinese partners hunt a high-level cybercrime network from Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Jakarta.

Director:

Michael Mann

Writer:

Morgan Davis Foehl

Stars:

Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Wei Tang

1 win & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Chris Hemsworth	...	Nick Hathaway
Leehom Wang	...	Chen Dawai
Wei Tang	...	Chen Lien
Viola Davis	...	Carol Barrett
Holt McCallany	...	Mark Jessup
Andy On	...	Alex Trang
Ritchie Coster	...	Elias Kassar
Christian Borle	...	Jeff Robichaud
John Ortiz	...	Henry Pollack
Yorick van Wageningen	...	Sadak
Tyson Chak	...	Tech
Brandon Molale	...	Sort Guard
Danny Burstein	...	Associate Warden Jeffries
Archie Kao	...	Shum
Abhi Sinha	...	Daniels

Storyline

Nick Hathaway, an extremely talented hacker who has gone astray, finds his way out of a 15 year prison sentence when parts of a computer code he once wrote during his youth appears in a malware that triggered a terrorist attack in a nuclear power plant in China. This opportunity will reunite him with an old friend but will also put him in the middle of a power game between the American and Chinese government as well as an arch villain hacker whose identity he has to find if he wants to keep his freedom and his life.

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Plot Keywords:

hacker | chinese | computer | cybercrime | one word title | 

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Taglines:

We are no longer in control

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and some language

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English Mandarin Spanish

Release Date:

16 January 2015 (USA)

Also Known As:

Blackhat

Filming Locations:

Hong Kong, China

Box Office

Budget:

$70,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,415,000, 18 January 2015, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$8,005,980, 31 December 2015

Company Credits

Production Co:

Forward Pass, Legendary Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

133 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Datasat SDDS Dolby Surround 7.1 Dolby Atmos

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

After the disappointing US box office results Universal Pictures International opted not to release the film theatrically in Australia on 25 February 2015 as originally scheduled and released it straight to DVD/BluRay instead. In Belgium and other markets it went straight to DVD/BluRay, too.

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Goofs

When looking through the hex dump, Nick Hathaway comes across a "//TODO ... " and infers the malware developer was in a hurry. Compiled binaries don't contain programmer comments. They are removed very early in the compilation process.

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Quotes

Gary Baker: You want to see my data, you come up with something a little more tangible. Something more in the way of probable cause than your hunch.
Carol Barrett: Gary. May I call you Gary? How's this for tangible? In the next 15 seconds I call Laura Greer at the Commodities Trading Commission. And I say, "Laura, how you doing? I'd like to launch an official investigation on one Gary Baker." So the headline, "M-Tech Official Investigated for Aiding and Abetting Cyber Criminals" leaks to CNN in the next 90, so it makes ...
[...]

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Alternate Versions

In the European version of the film, the description of Lozano and his affiliation with the "Los Zapotecas" gang at approx. 26 minutes into the film is shortened.

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Connections

Featured in Film 2017: Episode #44.6 (2015)

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Soundtracks

Let the Girls Out
from Elysium (2013)
Written and Produced by Ryan Amon
Courtesy of TriStar Pictures, Inc. and MRC II Distribution Company L.P.
Under License from Sony Pictures Music Group

User Reviews

Hacking - Lucrative Trade

This is one of the few, say past fifteen years, films with science and or high tech as an important plot element, whether sci-fi or just drama, that did its research and got the science/tech mostly right. And, it did so in a way that explained it with some entertaining clarity e.g. the opening, and a couple of other scenes, showing packets of data traveling through computer architecture was about as good as it can be. The rest of the film that dealt with cyber hacking was presented with accuracy and surprising clarity for a mass marketing film. Great location authenticity with filming in L.A. (OK, that's not so great), Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong.

On the other hand the action scenes were basically just movie entertainment and at times a bit overboard. Such as, and a bit far-fetched, that our lead character (Hemsworth) is a world class coder (programmer) and some how had the time to become a world class action killing machine. Talk about being a Renaissance man! More of an international cast would have been interesting. Davis (with Tina Turner wig which made no sense for an agent) was stereotyped into filling the black FBI agent role which seems to be a popular character placement in film in recent years (e.g., recently, "Powers").