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Sunday, November 6, 2022

THE TAKEOVER (2022)

Computer thriller from The Netherlands stars Holly Mae Brood as a natural teen hacker, now grown up and working for a systems safety company.  Taking care of an emergency threat with a ‘Trojan Horse’ patch, she’s off on a rare date night only to find both her temporary fix and her promising date blowing up in her face.  Turns out, the system she made the patch for, an auto-drive bus company, is connected to a bigger & dangerously lethal organization who can’t get around her ‘Trojan Horse’ temp solution and are busy tracking her down, forcing her and her lousy date to run for their lives.  The film covers familiar ground, think Hitchcock innocents-on-the-run (SPELLBOUND/’45; NORTH BY NORTHWEST/’59) plus a big lift from SPEED/’94, using slick computer graphic effects that happily are somewhat restricted by a non-Hollywood budget..  What makes it work anyway, in spite of too many problems solved with furious computer keyboard typing*, are good characterizations.  Lean mean murdering villain; pudgy tech mentor; ambiguous blonde bus company exec; and especially the initially disappointing date who sticks around and shows just how valuable a non-intellectual doofus can be in a pinch.  Played by 30-ish actor Geza Weisz, he pretty much steals the pic, clumsily backing into heroics with the puppy-like appeal of a young Mathieu Amalric.  Somebody grab this guy for Hollywood!

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Today’s furious computer typing analogous to those newspaper headlines used back in ‘30s.  And now, even this is being replaced by hard to read TEXT messaging.

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