Jobs (2013) * *

Directed by:  Joshua Michael Stern

Starring:  Ashton Kutcher, Josh Gad, Matthew Modine, JK Simmons, Dermot Mulroney, Ron Eldard

Jobs seems to end just as it about to really get started.     It is a rags-to-riches biopic of the late founder of Apple Computers who created game changing technology such as Mac, IPod, IPhone, IPad, and ITunes.      The film focuses primarily on the founding of the computer empire in 1974 up to 1996, when the ousted Jobs returned to become struggling Apple's CEO.      There is also a brief prologue from 2001 with Steve Jobs (Kutcher), tall and hunched over, introducing the IPod to enthusiastic approval from his staff.  

Steve Jobs began Apple in his adoptive parents' garage along with Steve "Woz" Wozniak (Gad), who builds most of what Jobs dreams up.     The fledgling Apple Computers (named because of Woz' love for The Beatles) gains needed capital investment from local businessman Mike Markkula (Mulroney) and soon enough, Apple is one of the biggest computer manufacturers around.     Jobs is now rich, but not satisfied.     He wants to create Something Big and devotes all of his energies into creating Mac, a home computer which runs overbudget and misses key deadlines due to Jobs' perfectionism.      How much of a perfectionist is Jobs?    For starters, he fires a programmer who doesn't share his passion for font creation.     He becomes a borderline bully in his quest to create the next big thing.

Part of the issue with Jobs is that it only focuses on what was surely only one aspect of Jobs' personality, and not the pleasant aspect.    Kutcher plays Jobs as written and as the filmmakers wanted him to:  Angry, sullen, intense and then angrier, more sullen, and more intense.     He lets off steam by speeding down empty highways at night screaming at the top of his lungs.     Certainly the real Jobs was able to develop rapport with others, but he's depicted here as an angry loner.     This is illustrated during key struggles with his Board Of Directors, who unanimously vote for his ouster.    You can't blame them.     Who wants a malcontent like Jobs hanging around?

Jobs doesn't really develop a point of view on its subject.    Does it want us to appreciate him as a visionary despite his personality flaws?    It's difficult to sympathize with him because he's just too obtuse for his own good.    We see little of the people skills that Jobs must've certainly possessed in order to create his empire.     What we do see is a guy whom people couldn't have been too thrilled to work for.    The film also leaves us feeling that there was more story to be told.     Did Jobs learn to be a better man?    What went into the creation of the technology that has defined this century so far?    How did he handle his battle with cancer before his death in 2011?     Unless there is a Jobs 2, it is likely we won't know.