Antitrust (film)

• Ryan Phillippe: Milo Hoffmann
• Rachael Leigh Cook: Lisa Calighan
• Claire Forlani: Alice Poulson
• Tim Robbins: Gary Winston ( CEO N.U.R.V. )
• Yee Jee Tso: Teddy Chin
• Tyler Labine: Redmond

Startup is an American thriller from 2001. Directed by Peter Howitt film has been published in Switzerland under the title Conspiracy.com.

Action

The geeks Milo Hoffmann and Teddy Chin founded with two other friends in Silicon Valley, a startup company and develop in a garage open source software. They are convinced programmer for free software. While they watch a live interview with Gary Winston whose consolidated NURV ( Motto: Never Underestimate Radical Vision) is the most powerful and influential manufacturers of proprietary software, Milo gets a phone call in which Gary and Teddy offers him a job in his company. Teddy leans immediately, but Milo rises after an impressive visit of Gary's Villa at NURV one. He is given the task to program the centerpiece of an innovative global communications system called Synapse that will be able to link all satellite-based communication devices multimedia together.

The working conditions in N.U.R.V. appear terrific: A friendly, relaxed atmosphere with all amenities, well-paid job, a family-oriented company that places great emphasis on the promotion of individual creativity obviously. Gradually, however, Milo fall on the corrupt machinations of this company. He notes that Winston numerous ideas from independent software developers steals by being observed when working with mini cameras. Through continuous technology theft to NURV ensures its international monopoly and ongoing development advantage. So his friend Teddy was spied and when he has made ​​a significant step in the programming of an open source communication system, he is ambushed and killed by NURV employees. The program code created by him will flow into the Synapse project with.

Milo begins to investigate and finds out that he also already of NURV is monitored and that they know all his weaknesses, such as an allergy to sesame. His longtime girlfriend, Alice is actually called Rebecca, and is also a NURV - informant, which was introduced several years ago in his life in order to manipulate him. The daycare center for the group serves as a hidden headquarters for criminal activities, there are all spying on data stored.

Milo turns to his colleague Lisa Calighan that in as a graphic designer NURV is employed. To her he trusted, because he has found out that she is under observation and he found a secret file on her in daycare. Together they devise a plan to publish the illegal activities of the company: You want to use the Synapse system itself to bring the collected information to the public. With the help of a friend who works at a TV station, they try to get access to the satellite system of synapse. But Gary Winston has already experienced by Lisa of the plan and is able to delay by timely shutdown of some satellite broadcast of the Enlightenment mission. But Milo has made provisions in secret: He has made ​​a second copy of the information collected and commissioned a friend, its proprietary satellite system on the grounds of NURV to use to send the program. Therefore, it is of no use that stop by Winston hired thugs Milo. So it is possible but ultimately to hijack some satellite and broadcast the " Pirates program " worldwide on all TV channels. The public learns of the criminal acts of the company NURV, directly after the source code of the Synapse system will be sent and so to free knowledge. Gary Winston and his accomplices were arrested.

Reviews

The lexicon of international film wrote that the film was a " cramped high-tech thriller, which it also on pace, but especially of a convincing narrative as mental concept " lacking. The cast could not compensate for these weaknesses.

The magazine Cinema wrote that the film "would be a fine thriller" when the director " also placed great emphasis on sophisticated suspense as to the successful demonization of Bill Gates" would. In the existing form of the film was " like boring advised as the screen saver for Windows 2000 ".

Awards

Peter Howitt won two of the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2001. Don Davis was nominated in 2001 for the World Soundtrack Award. The film was nominated in 2002 for the Political Film Society Award for Democracy.

Others

The cost of production was estimated at 30 million U.S. dollars. The film grossed worldwide about 17.8 million U.S. dollars, including about 10.97 million U.S. dollars in the cinema of the United States.

The various source code fragments that passes Gary Milo, are excerpts from a Java version of a web server, which come from a tutorial from Sun Microsystems. You have - unlike claims in the film - nothing to do with data compression or something similar. On the other hand, Milo partially common Unix / Linux commands to the system of NURV to look for clues.

Milos input to the computers in the daycare is show- p 1984, which is a reference to the novel by George Orwell, which is about government surveillance.

Also, in the intro are more HTML source code modules to see, for example, the website of the Internet Movie Database; however, it is invalid in several places.