ANTITRUST (Movie Review)

The world’s technology is continuously improving. Every year, new state-of-the-art devices and gadgets are invented or improved. One example of these is the computer. Computers have changed our lives since they were first introduced. Computers can do lots of things that are very helpful to mankind --- instant communication all over the world, storage of vast amounts of information, processing huge amounts of data, and many more. However, some people do evil things just to attain these technological advancements.
As what I can see in the film ANTITRUST, people tend to be greedy just to achieve their personal interests. Killing innocent people for the code? That’s absurd! However, in the film, that’s what the NURV (Never Underestimate Radical Vision) company is doing. The company is developing a product named Synapse, a worldwide media distribution network. To fully accomplish it, they kill programmers around the world and steal the code they need.
The film’s main character is Milo Hoffman, who is a computer genius. He works with his friends at their software development company which is just located at a garage. They call it Skullbocks. However, when he accepted the deal of NURV’s CEO to work in the company despite his friends’ objection, his life begins to change. He lost a friend and he was trapped in the middle of a conspiracy. The film somewhat imparts that people should not be too ambitious because it could pull us down. We should be contented on the simple things we have in hand. We should not be blind by money, by an ideal working environment, or by great opportunities because we don’t know what‘s really behind those things. We should not also be perceived easily by what we think good-natured people because we don’t know that they are just hiding in a mask. Like what happened to Hoffman in the film, even his girlfriend Alice Poulson is part of the conspiracy. Her real name is Rebecca Paul, an ex-con appointed by the company to maneuver him.
The film has a happy ending. Hoffman and his companions outwitted the NURV. They were able to broadcast to the world the hidden truth of NURV’s operation and the code of the Synapse. Synapse then becomes an open source code. People all over the world could already download it. It’s a very nice thing. People could use the benefits of the Synapse without even a cent to pay. That is the message of the film. It widens the public's awareness and knowledge level of the accessibility of open-source software. Advancements in technology should be shared to the people for free.