I was not terribly impressed with this movie.
The main character, Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), developed a "process" for his company that was worth a fortune to it. The "process" was left undescribed as well as what it was worth, which was fine because those details were truly immaterial. What was important was that the process was secret, proprietary, and worth a lot of money.
Joe was determined to be properly compensated for developing this process, but his company was constantly evasive about compensation. He became hyper-aware of his company's slow-footing with compensating him after having a conversation with Julian "Jimmy" Dell (Steve Martin), a fat cat who pretended to have no interest in Joe's line of work. Eventually, Joe found out that he was being conned by Jimmy, but how big was this con and how many were in on it? Think "The Sting."
The movie is clearly low budget. The sound and editing was poor. They cut from scene to scene so slowly and awkwardly it was like a T.V. show with the commercials edited out. And Campbell Scott left a lot to be desired from a main character. Whether it was by design or not, he came off like Egon in "Ghostbusters" and it didn't work. He was so dry, monotone, and impassive, but not as though he was supposed to be because even in scenes where you'd expect some type of emotional response there was none.
Ignoring all of that I still have questions:
If Joe was so brilliant, why did he bring the real "process" with him when instructed by the FBI (it was a fake FBI, but he didn't know that)? He could just as easily have created a fake "process" and no one would've known the difference.
When he was initially arrested, what was he charged with? The assumption is that he was arrested for stealing the "process" which, I'm assuming, was company property since he worked for the company when he developed it, but the "process" was always in his possession. Furthermore, that would hardly be a local cop issue, which is what the interrogating officers looked like.
Since when does the U.S. Marshals use tranquilizer darts for armed criminals? At the very end Joe was saved by a U.S. Marshal who shot Jimmy with an extremely fast-acting tranq dart. For that I call BS.
Firstly: how and why the U.S. Marshals were in on the sting at the behest of Joe's boss is beyond me.
Secondly: U.S. Marshals aren't using tranquilizer darts for an armed person about to kill someone! That was wholly absurd and unrealistic.
Back when there was IMDb forums I would've posted these questions there reserving my review strictly for a review of the movie, where I would've also been ruthlessly criticized for my lack of intelligence. But alas, due to the absence of IMDb forums I have to post my questions and complaints in my review, thereby not getting a clever answer to my question and also not getting brutally lambasted. Oh! How I miss IMDb forums.
The main character, Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), developed a "process" for his company that was worth a fortune to it. The "process" was left undescribed as well as what it was worth, which was fine because those details were truly immaterial. What was important was that the process was secret, proprietary, and worth a lot of money.
Joe was determined to be properly compensated for developing this process, but his company was constantly evasive about compensation. He became hyper-aware of his company's slow-footing with compensating him after having a conversation with Julian "Jimmy" Dell (Steve Martin), a fat cat who pretended to have no interest in Joe's line of work. Eventually, Joe found out that he was being conned by Jimmy, but how big was this con and how many were in on it? Think "The Sting."
The movie is clearly low budget. The sound and editing was poor. They cut from scene to scene so slowly and awkwardly it was like a T.V. show with the commercials edited out. And Campbell Scott left a lot to be desired from a main character. Whether it was by design or not, he came off like Egon in "Ghostbusters" and it didn't work. He was so dry, monotone, and impassive, but not as though he was supposed to be because even in scenes where you'd expect some type of emotional response there was none.
Ignoring all of that I still have questions:
If Joe was so brilliant, why did he bring the real "process" with him when instructed by the FBI (it was a fake FBI, but he didn't know that)? He could just as easily have created a fake "process" and no one would've known the difference.
When he was initially arrested, what was he charged with? The assumption is that he was arrested for stealing the "process" which, I'm assuming, was company property since he worked for the company when he developed it, but the "process" was always in his possession. Furthermore, that would hardly be a local cop issue, which is what the interrogating officers looked like.
Since when does the U.S. Marshals use tranquilizer darts for armed criminals? At the very end Joe was saved by a U.S. Marshal who shot Jimmy with an extremely fast-acting tranq dart. For that I call BS.
Firstly: how and why the U.S. Marshals were in on the sting at the behest of Joe's boss is beyond me.
Secondly: U.S. Marshals aren't using tranquilizer darts for an armed person about to kill someone! That was wholly absurd and unrealistic.
Back when there was IMDb forums I would've posted these questions there reserving my review strictly for a review of the movie, where I would've also been ruthlessly criticized for my lack of intelligence. But alas, due to the absence of IMDb forums I have to post my questions and complaints in my review, thereby not getting a clever answer to my question and also not getting brutally lambasted. Oh! How I miss IMDb forums.