Paranoia

Forgettable and generic, Paranoia follows Liam Hemsworth’s Adam Cassidy as he’s recruited by a tech company to spy on another tech company – with the film detailing the chaos that inevitably ensues. Filmmaker Robert Luketic, working from a script by Jason Dean Hall and Barry Levy, has infused Paranoia with a paint-by-numbers feel that is, at the outset, not as problematic as one might’ve feared, with the pointedly thriller-specific bent of the narrative, coupled with a cavalcade of familiar faces in supporting roles (Harrison Ford! Gary Oldman! Richard Dreyfuss! etc, etc), ensuring that the movie is, by and large, watchable (albeit in a killing-time sort of way). It doesn’t hurt, either, that Luketic has peppered the early part of the proceedings with surprisingly compelling sequences, with the best example of this a low-key scene wherein Hemsworth and Ford’s respective characters commiserate over the loss of departed loved ones. There comes a point, however, at which the narrative is suffused with the various tropes generally associated with this kind of thing (eg chases, double-crosses, schemes, etc), and it is, as a result, increasingly difficult to work up any interest in or enthusiasm for the central character’s perilous antics. The pervasive tedium of the movie’s final stretch is, to put it mildly, somewhat disastrous, and it’s ultimately impossible to label Paranoia as anything more than a lazy (and half-baked) thriller that’s been unapologetically geared towards undiscriminating teens (ie think “My First Thriller” type stuff).

** out of ****