Product Details

• Actors: Ryan Phillippe, Tim Robbins, Rachael Leigh Cook, Claire Forlani, Douglas McFerran
• Directors: Peter Howitt
• Writers: Howard Franklin
• Producers: Ashok Amritraj, C.O. Erickson, David Hoberman, David Nicksay, Julia Chasman
• Format: PAL
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (115 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005OA7M
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #675,700 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The term suspension of disbelief was invented for the idea that Ryan Phillippe could be a computer genius. As Milo, a slacker brainiac recruited by smilingly ominous software giant Gary Winston (Tim Robbins) to help build a global communications system, Phillippe still looks like a million bucks. He is also still doing the clenched, pouty grown-up voice that he always uses to show that he means business in this acting stuff (he's nothing if not earnest), and a pair of designer glasses completes the transformation. He's well matched in Antitrust by Claire Forlani, who, in turn, spends time pursing her lips and squinting her dewy eyes as Milo's troubled girlfriend, an artist who proves to be a liability when Milo discovers that Winston is killing off clever competitors like a dot-com führer. Robbins, looking like David Letterman, seems willing to either take his role dead seriously or goof around a bit, but director Peter Howitt doesn't know how to play any of it (the actor was better used as a grinning madman in another flawed paranoid thriller, the underseen Arlington Road). Without any underlying menace or enough satirical bite to keep it interesting, the whole thing slips by passively in a mindless matinee kind of way until the over-the-top finale. Production designer Catherine Hardwicke has had some big, glossy fun creating Winston's campus and ornate private kingdom, and there's the cheapest of kicks in seeing Robbins's Bill Gates taken down publicly, but the film is definitely junior league. --Steve Wiecking

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I Know what Tim Robbins Did Last Summer, April 18, 2001

By 

Elderbear (Loma Linda, Aztlan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Antitrust [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Ryan Phillippe acquits himself credibly as genius geek who gets his big break working for a Bill Gates wannabe, played by Tim Robbins. The biggest problem, going in, is open source versus commercialism. As the flick begins, Milo's (Phillippe's character) biggest dillemma is sorting out open-source Anarchism from Capitalist wage-slave (albeit elite) seduction.

While Milo makes the "wrong" choice, it propels him into the storyline of this movie. Slowly we see that Robbins would put a James Bond villain to shame. Eventually, Milo figures that out, too. Don't worry about being too slow to pick up what's going on, the major plot is spelled out so that even the most clueless jock can keep track.

Some interesting cinematic devices are used (notice the digital art during a climactic sequence) and the actors compel us to take part in the story. Plenty of clues forshadow important plot elements, so viewers may feel smarter than they really are as they predict what will happen next. For the real propellor heads, actual HTML & BASH codes are used. Massive Attack's "Angel" fits perfectly into a key dramatic moment.

How much longer can Tim Robbins go on playing charismatic psychopaths without getting typecast?

Four stars for plot, four stars for revealing the plot, four stars for acting. Overall, a great Friday night entertainment flick. Won't win any awards, but who cares? It's fun.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars reeks..., January 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Antitrust (DVD)

Wow. If you're over thirty years old and possess an I.Q. greater than a potato you will abhor this assault to your intellect. If you work in the industry you'll find it too painful to watch. If you find films like Hackers, The Net, or the remake of Charlie's Angles too embarrassing to admit to having watched - you might consider skipping this one.

The production is clean. The acting is quite good. The direction is fine. The soundtrack works. However, the moronic premise is less intellectually satisfying than any episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants or Dexter's Laboratory (the latter probably having more realistic computer science than the preposterous despotism portrayed in the film.)

The film takes itself far too seriously and tries to deliver a dramatic message by oversimplifying and vilifying the complexities of the computer industry. This is an appalling disinformation campaign that delivers almost no suspension of disbelief.

This sensualization of insipid technical minutiae propped up with the old "delusions of persecution" plot is, in my humble opinion, a waste of everybody's time.

If you're looking for just entertainment - Swordfish is a fun film.

I suppose this will appeal to the "script kiddies" <sigh>

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good hacking scenes, everything else bad, August 5, 2004

By 

Jonathan Bartlett "johnnyb248" (Broken Arrow, OK United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antitrust (DVD)

The one good thing about this movie is that this is the first movie I've ever seen that uses _real_ computer commands for hacking. If you watch the commands that the hero uses to hack into the computer, you will find that they are, in fact, real commands that work the way shown.

Other than that, the movie was pretty lame. It could have been a good movie, but it was just a bit unbelieveable and not well thought through. The open-source/closed-source differentiation was bad. As an open-source/free software advocate, I thought that the portrayal of the reasons for open-source and the philosophy were very poorly portrayed.

I enjoyed seeing it for the hacking scenes, and to get to see a few of my favorite programmers on film in cameo shots. It's also somewhat historic, as being the first mainstream film about monopoly power and open-source, even though it treated both subjects poorly (a real movie about the problems of monopolies would be great, but this wasn't it). So, watch it for those reasons, because there isn't much else there.