It’s a sprightly, if derivative yarn which, seemingly due to studio politics, is making its debut in the usually quality-bereft DTV world. While not quite up there with the David Fincher’s aforementioned zeitgeist-encapsulating audience and critic favourite, it’s certainly worthy of a big-screen release and well worth a viewing.
Set in the early noughties, a beefed-up Luke Wilson stars as devoted family man and astute business advisor, Jack Harris. Following a string of successful ventures he’s spearheaded, he is offered the chance to help a couple of .com entrepreneurs who have inadvertently launched the first pay-per-view online porn site. Played by Gabriel Macht and Giovanni Ribisi, the two are clueless when it comes to the business end of things, and through their drug-addled and hopelessly naive behaviour, they owe a wedge of money to the Russian mafia who are looking for a sizable return. Harris’ initial attempts to smooth things over result in an accidental death and a sloppy cover-up, but soon he’s back on track and the trio begin to make untold riches from the nation’s obsession with downloading wrist fodder.
Like all good rags to riches tales, things inevitably begin to slide as Harris grows increasingly intoxicated by the lifestyle and trades in his remarkably supportive wife for a younger model (in the shapely form of Laura Ramsey’s twentysomething online porn starlet). He also finds himself having to deal with an utterly corrupt solicitor (James Caan), while the belligerent Russians make their presence felt once again and even the FBI become entangled in it all.
What lets the film down a little is director George Gallo’s need to often cram in unnecessary visual flourishes. His insistence on using a number of those now terribly clichéd CSI-style abstract-y flashbacks stick out like a sore thumb, and it’s almost as if he doesn’t have faith in the inherently fascinating story he’s trying to tell. Wilson’s family fall-out is glossed over too, and the emotional ramifications are never satisfyingly captured or dealt with.
[Rating:3.5/5]