by Frank Calvillo
If watching the trailer for the new Pierce Brosnan-led thriller I.T. calls to mind the classic thriller Cape Fear (along with its pitch perfect remake), it’s by no means an accident. This film borrows the majority of that film’s blueprint and covers it with cyber techno wrapping paper for some admittedly decent-looking sequences, but little else. Even though the film hopelessly tries to offer up plenty of Cape Fear-like moments from start to finish, including a finale which takes place as a monstrous thunderstorm plays out in the background, the fear and menace that drove the power of those films is replaced with a hackneyed production which calls on most thriller cliches and is devoid of any suspense whatsoever.
In I.T., billionaire businessman Mike Regan (Brosnan) is on the brink of the biggest success of his life that would mean more money for him and his loving family, which includes wife Rose (Anna Friel) and daughter Kaitlyn (Stefanie Scott). However, when his company’s temporary I.T. tech Ed Porter (James Frecheville) begins to get dangerously close to Mike and his family after mistaking simple kindness for something more, things take a deadly turn as Mike and his family find themselves as the hands of a tech-savvy madman who knows no bounds.
It’s not enough to simply state that I.T. offers up its fair share of genre cliches when the truth is that the entire film is almost an exercise in the term itself. To put it bluntly, there’s virtually no suspense to be had here whatsoever. I.T. was obviously made on the cheap, but that is far from an excuse for anything. It’s almost as if the film seems to know it has nothing novel to offer so as a result, it tries to rush through the motions until it comes to its expected conclusion.
Most of the tired and trite aspects can be found in the villain (usually the film’s most entertaining element). Sadly, Ed is one of the dullest heavies ever to grace the genre, at best coming off like someone from the background in Oliver Stone’s recently-released Snowden. The most frustrating thing about the character is that it’s hard to tell what drives Ed to want to be a part of Mike’s life. Is he enamored of him, or does he despise him and everything he stands for? It’s assumed that he does somewhat look up to him in a way, but not much else is ever explored beyond that. In the meantime, Ed checks off all the items on the antagonist to-do list. He gets teary-eyed, then appropriately becomes enraged. We know this because that’s the face he makes as he starts lip-synching to Missing Persons before screaming out in his car only to be seen moments later furiously working out while high as a way to maintain his rage.
In spite of all this, there are actually a number of things that I.T. DOES manage to get right. The first is the instant portrait of Mike as a man who in a way is questioning the value of all he has made, including his present life, though he may not realize it. When he finds himself in this current situation, it humbles him and brings him back down to earth to a level he thought he was at, yet not really. It’s interesting when Mike is stripped down to nothing and has to fight his own fight the old-fashioned way. Moreover, Ed’s introduction in the film is so subtly done; a good move that not a lot of thrillers go with. This method makes him a quiet, unnoticeable presence that is unsuspecting, yet still menacing. It is interesting how Ed chooses to go for the personal in terms of his attacks, such as faking an email from Rose’s doctor telling her she has breast cancer and broadcasting a video he took of Kaitlyn masturbating in the shower to the entire student body.
I.T. makes a somewhat worthy attempt at actual social commentary when the two leads are discussing advancing technology and the state of privacy. “Privacy is privilege, not a right,” Ed tells Mike in one of the film’s truest moments. In spite of all its shortcomings, the film’s core idea of who we put our faith and trust into solving all the technology-based problems we deem too complex to solve on our own hits home pretty hard. I.T. shows the worst possible nightmare stemming from that and turns it into a reality.
As good as actors as Brosnan and Frecheville are, the material never lets them show it to the audience. The screenplay for I.T. lets the two actors down so much, as well as everyone on screen with them, by serving nothing but the blandest of lines and standing back as they struggle to breathe life into them.
There’s no one in all of I.T. worth feeling sorrier for in my opinion than Friel, who is utterly wasted here as she has been for most of her career as the worried wife. From what I’ve seen, the only real time Friel has ever been given anything close to a fleshed out character to play was in a Woody Allen film entitled You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, where with just two brief scenes she was able to carve out a wonderfully complex and moving character with a tumultuous past to boot, proving just how talented of an actress she is. Sadly, thanks to I.T., and other such dreck the actress is constantly being offered, that fact is almost totally forgotten.
