THE HUMMINGBIRD PROJECT
(director/writer: Kim Nguyen; cinematographer: Nicolas Bolduc; editors: Arthur Tarnowski, Nicolas Chaudeurge; music: Yves Gourmeur; cast: Alexander Skarsgård (Anton), Jesse Eisenberg (Vincent Zaleski), Salma Hayek (Eva Torres), Frank Schorpion (Bryan Taylor), Michael Mando (Mark Vega), Sarah Goldberg (Mascha), Anna Maguire (Quant Jenny), Johan Heldenbergh (Amish Elder ), Kwasi Songui (Ray Engineer), Ayisha Issa (Ophelia Troller); Runtime: 110; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Pierre Even; The Orchard; 2018-Canada/Belgium)
“Too much minutia and drilling.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A pointless and dull financial thriller with misplaced comedy for the digital age. It’s weakly written and directed by Kim Nguyen (“War Witch”/”City of Shadows”), who keeps it lifeless and impersonal and bogged down with a messy script. The sharpie fast-talking New Yorker Vincent Zaleski (Jesse Eisenberg) comes up with a robust money-making idea to run fiber-optic cable from Kansas to a Wall Street databank in New Jersey to gain a millisecond info advantage — the wing speed of a hummingbird in action. The head-shaven computer maven Russian Jew Anton (Alexander Skarsgård) is Vincent’s geeky cousin, and is the genius coder behind the hummingbird idea.Eva Torres (Selma Hayek), the villain, is the scheming New York hedge-fund manager who tries to steal from the Zaleski boys the hot concept once she gets wind of it. Vincent and Anton worked for her high tech firm before they both quit to go on their own. To get their radical project off the ground, the cousins hire drilling expert Mark Vega (Michael Mando) and take in a principal financier, Bryan Taylor (Frank Schorpion). Then they must get permission to dig tunnels under such things as mountains and the homes of private citizens (something an Amish family won’t permit). This part and a tacked on subplot of Vincent dealing with stomach cancer slows down the film with too much minutia and drilling. Also the dramatics never kick in to excite the viewer, and the film never grabs your attention as it should to make you care about the characters.
REVIEWED ON 3/1/2019 GRADE: C+ https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/