Line #38 Film/Antitrust


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3	Remember back in the [[TheNineties late '90s]]/[[TurnOfTheMillennium early '00s]], when everybody thought that Microsoft was an evil MegaCorp hell-bent on [[TakeOverTheWorld Taking Over The (Computer) World]] by any means necessary? (Well, even more than they do today?) Well, what if "any means necessary" included murder? And what if it was up to [[TheHero one plucky programmer]] to expose their malevolence?
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5	That, ladies and gentlemen, is the plot of ''Antitrust''.
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7	''Antitrust'' is a 2001 {{thriller}} starring Creator/RyanPhillippe, Creator/TimRobbins, Creator/RachaelLeighCook, Claire Forlani, and Creator/RichardRoundtree. Milo Hoffman (Phillippe) is a young programmer from Silicon Valley whose talents earn him the notice of the UsefulNotes/{{Portland}}-based software corporation [[{{Expy}} NURV]], run by billionaire philanthropist [[SignificantMonogram Gary Winston]] (Robbins). Winston wants Milo to help him develop a new system called Synapse, which will link all the world's computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices via satellite. While at NURV, he starts falling for a young programmer named Lisa (Cook), which wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that [[LoveTriangle he already has a girlfriend]] in Alice (Forlani). However, after his programmer buddy Teddy (Yee Jee Tso) is murdered, Milo starts to uncover evidence that NURV may have been behind it... and the murder of countless other programmers in order to steal their work and claim it as their own. Out of a mix of duty to his dead friend and disgust at his employers, Milo sets out to destroy NURV from within and [[InformationWantsToBeFree give Synapse to the people]]... unless NURV stops him first and claims him as their next victim.
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9	----
10	!!''Antitrust'' provides examples of the following tropes:
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12	* AbusiveParents: Lisa was molested by her stepfather when she was a child.
13	* AffablyEvil: Winston. If he wasn't a hack and making his employees spy on and kill people to maintain his company's superiority, he probably would be a cool boss.
14	* AmbiguousSituation: At what point does Milo realize that [[spoiler:Lisa can't be trusted? He certainly doesn't tell her about the backup plan with Building 21, but that doesn't necessarily mean he knew she was TheMole.]]
15	* AsianAndNerdy: Teddy. The "Asian" part becomes important to the plot [[spoiler:when Winston hires white supremacists to beat him to death, making it look like it was a hate crime to divert attention from the theft of the data he was working on]].
16	* BigBrotherIsWatching: NURV has an elaborate surveillance system in its headquarters and cameras spying on potential employees, including a program that can rebuild the computer code they are working on from watching the screen and keyboard inputs.
17	* CantStopTheSignal: [[spoiler:Milo uses the code Winston has created to display the code Winston cobbled together from the work of the programmers he killed.]]
18	* CardboardPrison: NURV is good at pulling strings to get people out of trouble with the law, most notably [[spoiler:"Alice"]]. They have at least one [[spoiler:high-ranking DOJ official]] on their payroll, and who knows how many others.
19	** Milo wonders why the skinheads weren't already in jail when they're known criminals with an obvious lack of subtlety. Unclear whether NURV helped them directly, or just found them a useful scapegoat.
20	** Assuming Lisa's stepfather is still in jail, this is most likely what Milo's thinking when he suggests this is how she'll be disappeared if she turns on the company.
21	* ChekhovsGun: Milo's sesame seed allergy.
22	* CoolCar: Milo's company car, a white Mercedes SUV, is portrayed as this in comparison to the Buick that the Department of Justice would've given him for helping to take down NURV instead.
23	** Alice's Citroen 2CV also qualifies, in a cute and quirky sort of way.
24	* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Gary Winston is every single little conspiracy theory of Bill Gates given physical form - he is not above ordering assassinations to get what he wants.
25	* DidNotGetTheGirl: Milo does not end the movie with either of the female leads [[spoiler: because both were lying to him the entire time he's known them and complicit with the people who murdered his best friend and countless others. Notably, despite her HeelFaceTurn and Milo accepting that she was indeed [[InLoveWithTheMark not entirely pretending to be in love with him]],]] their last interaction implies that they will still be going their separate ways.
26	* ExpyCoexistence: Gary Winston is transparently based on Bill Gates, but Gates is also acknowledged as existing in the movie, apparently as a rival. At one point, Winston turns his nose up when a piece of technology he owns is compared to a similar one that Gates has in real life, and replies that Gates' version of the technology is primitive.
27	* FourEyesZeroSoul: Again, Winston.
28	* FunWithAcronyms: NURV (Never Underestimate Radical Vision).
29	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Alice/Rebecca.]]
30	* HiddenInPlainSight: The hard drive of "Cerebellum", NURV's MagicalDatabase, is located in the headquarters' daycare center.
31	* HollywoodHacking: Averted. The filmmakers [[ShownTheirWork went out of their way]] to portray hacking, the Linux community, and dawn-of-the-millennium computer technology in a fairly realistic manner. In fact, the only really glaring error was the character's use of [[EveryoneOwnsAMac an Apple laptop]] in the finale (hackers hardly ever use Apples), and that's probably more attributable to [[ExecutiveMeddling studio-enforced]] ProductPlacement than any lack of research.
32	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: NURV ultimately gets brought down when [[spoiler:Milo hacks into Synapse and uses it's features as an all-platform communications network to broadcast incriminating evidence to the entire world]].
33	* InLoveWithTheMark: [[spoiler:Alice/Rebecca falls in love with Milo, and betrays NURV in order to stay with him.]]
34	* InformationWantsToBeFree: At the climax, the heroes [[spoiler:release the Synapse source code for free after using it to broadcast the evidence of Winston's misdeeds]].
35	* InformedAttribute: We (and Milo) are told that Lisa doesn't open up to people, despite the fact that she's quite outgoing when it comes to Milo. [[spoiler:Justified when we find out that the person who told us that is in on the conspiracy, and so is Lisa.]]
36	* IronicEcho: During the opening credits montage, Winston makes a grand speech about how he fights to keep his company great that has him saying "you're either a 'one' or a 'zero'! You live or you die!" [[spoiler:The line gets looped throughout the video [[BookEnds played at the climax]] showing that programmers were murdered in their homes for the computer code they were working on by NURV employees.]]
37	* LoveTriangle: Milo/Alice/Lisa.
38	* MagicalDatabase: In keeping with it's gross invasions of privacy and aggressively paranoid tactics, NURV has one for its employees, potential employees, and anyone else they take even a passing interest in. Some detective work and some lucky guesses on file names provides Milo with conclusive proof that NURV was behind Teddy's murder and that he absolutely cannot trust anybody, not even the Department of Justice [[spoiler:or his girlfriend]].
39	* MegaCorp: NURV. A representation of everybody's fears of Microsoft, including having hitmen [[spoiler:and {{Honey Trap}}s]] on its payroll.
40	* TheMole: [[spoiler:Both Alice/Rebecca and Lisa at various points. The former starts out as this, but falls InLoveWithTheMark and does a HeelFaceTurn. The latter, meanwhile, pretends to help Milo in his crusade against NURV, but then turns him in to their security.]]
41	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Gary Winston is this to Bill Gates, with NURV as his Microsoft.
42	* OhCrap: [[spoiler:Alice's]] reaction when Milo [[spoiler:addresses her by her real name, Rebecca]]. Also happens to Winston when he sees [[spoiler:the Synapse broadcast exposing his crimes]].
43	* PlatoIsAMoron: Gary Winston highlights his ExpyCoexistence with Bill Gates by calling Gates a lesser programmer.
44	* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Invoked by NURV, who frame a pair of racist thugs for the murder of Teddy. They were banking on the "hate crime" angle to [[RedHerring throw off any attention from their involvement]]. Milo also speculates that, should NURV need to eliminate Lisa, they'll do the same with her, framing her [[LecherousStepparent abusive stepfather]] for her death.
45	* ProductPlacement:
46	** Pepsi soda and Pringles potato chips get in a lot of appearances.
47	** EveryoneOwnsAMac: [[spoiler:The Synapse broadcast]] is done with a Macintosh [=PowerBook=] G3.
48	* PullTheThread: The first conclusive piece of evidence Milo has that Winston is nothing more than a murderous hack is that the day right after Teddy is bludgeoned to death by his goons, Winston approaches Milo with a "solution" to a problem Synapse is having... the same solution and same code that Teddy was working on, and told Milo the last time they spoke, a few hours earlier.
49	* RapeAsBackstory: Lisa. See AbusiveParents above.
50	* ShownTheirWork: The filmmakers consulted Linux professionals in order to get their representation of the technology and culture right, used the GNOME desktop/GUI, and even scored cameos from Miguel de Icaza and Scott [=McNealy=].
51	* SignificantMonogram: Gary Winston... GW... WG... William Gates... [[SarcasmMode nope, nothing significant about that.]]
52	* {{Snapback}}: Occurs when a NURV employee enters the children's play area and accesses the hidden computer terminal. Somehow, Milo manages to escape (relatively) unnoticed.
53	* StoicSpectacles: Milo wears thick-framed glasses fairly consistently to read and use computers.
54	* TechBro: Milo and Winston are '90s/early '00s examples inspired more by the "dot-com" boom of the time, with Milo emphasizing the cool, youthful side of the trope and Winston being more the "nerd who got his revenge".
55	* TooDumbToLive: Granted, most restaurant dinner rolls are not covered in sesame seeds, and granted that he's very distracted after a high-stress day at a new, high-stakes job, but Milo... you have a fatal food allergy. Don't try to put something in your mouth without ''looking'' at it.
56	* UglyGuyHotWife: Although out-of-universe he's played by Creator/RyanPhillippe, in-universe he's still a nerd and the movie calls out him having a girlfriend as highly unusual. So how does nerdy Milo have a girlfriend as hot as Alice? [[spoiler:Because she's [[TheMole a corporate spy]] who's trying to keep him at NURV, that's why.]]
57	* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Winston, thanks to his philanthropic work (a reference to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
58	* WeInterruptThisProgram: The third act revolves around using the Synapse application to broadcast the video showcasing Winston's complicity in getting people killed for computer code around the world. Winston thinks he managed to stop this, [[spoiler:and gets a big OhCrap when he is gloating to Milo only to see that every channel and his computer's screen are all airing the video]].
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Context Film / Antitrust