Antitrust (film)
| Antitrust | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Peter Howitt |
| Produced by |
David Hoberman Ashok Amritraj C.O. Erickson Julia Chasman |
| Written by | Howard Franklin |
| Starring |
Ryan Phillippe Tim Robbins Rachael Leigh Cook Claire Forlani |
| Music by | Don Davis |
| Cinematography | John Bailey |
| Edited by | Zach Staenberg |
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Production
company |
Industry Entertainment
Hyde Park Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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109 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $18,195,610 |
Antitrust (also titled Conspiracy.com and Startup) is a 2001 thriller film written by Howard Franklin and directed by Peter Howitt.
Antitrust portrays young idealistic programmers and a large corporation (NURV) that offers significant money, a low-key working environment, and creative opportunities for those talented programmers willing to work for them. The charismatic CEO of NURV (Tim Robbins) seems to be good-natured, but recent employee and protagonist Milo Hoffman (Ryan Phillippe) begins to unravel the terrible hidden truth of NURV's operation.
The film stars Phillippe, Robbins, Rachael Leigh Cook, and Claire Forlani.Antitrust opened in the United States on January 12, 2001, to a poor reception; it was generally panned by critics.
Working with his three friends at their new software development company Skullbocks, Stanford graduate Milo Hoffman is contacted by CEO Gary Winston of NURV (Never Underestimate Radical Vision) for a very attractive programming position: a fat paycheck, an almost-unrestrained working environment, and extensive creative control over his work. Accepting Winston's offer, Hoffman and his girlfriend, Alice Poulson, move to NURV headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
Despite development of the flagship product (Synapse, a worldwide media distribution network) being well on schedule, Hoffman soon becomes suspicious of the excellent source code Winston personally provides to him, seemingly when needed most, while refusing to divulge the code's origin.
After his best friend, Teddy Chin, is murdered, Hoffman discovers that NURV is stealing the code they need from programmers around the world—including Chin—and then killing them to cover their tracks. Hoffman learns that not only does NURV employ an extensive surveillance system to observe and steal code, the company has infiltrated the Justice Department and most of the mainstream media. Even his girlfriend is a plant, an ex-con hired by the company to manipulate him.
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