Paranoia – Review
Paranoia is a thriller directed by Robert Luketic. With an excellent cast and fresh look expectations were high for this one.
Adam Cassidy (Liam Hemsworth) is an entry-level tech geek at mobile phone company Wyatt Corp. After being fired he, along with his friends, run up a unbelievable bar bill at a night club in retaliation. He is made a offer he can’t refuse by former boss Nicholas Wyatt (Gary Oldman) in exchange for wiping his bill and not being prosecuted. Adam is asked to commit corporate esponiage by spying on Nicholas’ former mentor and competitor Jock Goddard (Harrison Ford).
After a style make over and a lessons in the high flying corporate world, Adam is ready for duty.
With a film with such a strong cast it was a surprise that this just doesn’t match it’s talent. No tension or suspense? One of the major misleading problem with this film is the title Paranoia? If someone knows they are being watched, and by whom, it’s not really paranoia. There is one scene that seems to have been tacked on in a panic to try and justify it, this is when Adam is confiding in his father and suddenly wonders who’s watching.
No one is bad in the film but it just doesn’t do what I would have liked it to do. I found it to be predictable which left little to be excited about. Hemsworth gives a good performance and he has the makings of an excellent leading man but unfortunately this wasn’t the vehicle to get him there. Both Ford and Oldman can be fun to watch, but the story lets the effort they put in down. Even this dream team can’t save Paranoia.
Overall this was disappointingly average for what could have been an interesting look at the modern corporate and technology competition. It fails to convince us and is not ‘The Firm’ of the 2000’s that it could have been.
Reviewed by Ian Wright and Ingrid Grenar
