This award-winning thriller draws us into a world of number-crunching without losing us in a sea of mathematics. Slick and gripping, it's a very confident feature debut from Connolly. The story centres on Jim Doyle (Wenham), a maths genius poached by the sinister CEO (LaPaglia) of a huge bank to develop his stock market theories--ideas that will potentially be able to predict and profit from a market crash. But as Jim gets closer to discovering the secret, the bank's shady dealings make him suspect everyone, including his new girlfriend (Budd). Meanwhile, a bereaved couple (Davis and McElhinney) are trying to make the bank pay for their personal misfortune.

This dual-strand story structure is perhaps the film's weak point, as it shows up the flaws in the narrative--conveniences, contrivances and flat-out unbelievable plotting that try to make everything come together meaningfully at the end. And even though the lawsuit subplot does add a bit of depth, it always seems like an distracting sideroad. Meanwhile, Connolly's low-key, solid direction keeps us intrigued and pretty much covers over the melodrama and moral hand-wringing. Wenham delivers yet another powerful, complex performance; it's about time Northern Hemisphere audiences discover him! LaPaglia, meanwhile, creates a terrifically arrogant character ("I am God, in a better suit"), never fully evil but always totally suspect. And the story has some excellent twists at the end that make it thoroughly satisfying in a way bloated Hollywood movies never are.

themes, language

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7.Mar.02