Blackhat (2015) * *

Directed by:  Michael Mann

Starring:  Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Tang Wei, Leehom Wang, William Mapother, John Ortiz

Blackhat moves faster than such Michael Mann films as Miami Vice, Public Enemies, and Ali, which are paced like they were stuck in quicksand.    Blackhat is a more, vaguely satisfying, conventional thriller from Mann.   It never makes the leap into being anything but ordinary, but  I'll take it over the gloomy Miami Vice or the endless Public Enemies, while it ranks below Heat, The Insider, and Collateral in the hierarchy of Mann's work.

Blackhat begins with a meltdown of a Chinese nuclear reactor.    Before you ask whether Homer Simpson works there, we learn that the meltdown was caused by a hacker with more ambition than just average identity thief.    The Chinese government is at a loss on finding this untraceable hacker, so they turn to an imprisoned American hacker named Hathaway (Hemsworth), doing time for stunts similar to what the villain in Live Free or Die Hard pulled.   

Hathaway is intelligent and tough to deal with, but he quickly falls for one of his team members Chen Lien (Wei) who is the brother of another team member (Wang), who was Hathaway's college roommate.    The team is rounded out by an FBI agent Carol Barrett (Davis) under intense scrutiny to keep tabs on Hathaway and find the hacker.  

The search for the hacker takes the team all over the world, including scenic places like Hong Kong, Jakarta, and a piece of land in Malaysia that looks as habitable as the planets in Interstellar.    The hacker is not just interested in mayhem, but cornering the stock market due to the incidents he causes.    He makes $74 million in soy and is looking for a bigger payday with his next stunt.  

Hemsworth is a capable lead and is physically imposing, so much so that we can believe it when he takes down baddies mano a mano.     Even those who are special forces types.    His character, like the others in the film, are only superficially drawn, but he can bang away at the keyboard with the best of them.     A key conflict the film sidesteps in one fell swoop is when Hathaway is ordered to be returned to the States because he hacked into an NSA system which can recreate destroyed files.    His team is ordered to send bring him in.    Will they disobey orders and continue with Hathaway?   The film takes care of any potential moral and ethical dilemmas in one key shootout. 

Mann's film is well-paced and serviceable.     The conclusion flies in the face of convention in a way because, well, you'll see for yourself.    Usually Roger Ebert's Law of Economy of Characters plays a part in films in which the heroes are trying to identify a mystery villain.    The law says (paraphrasing) that any seemingly unnecessary character is usually the villain.    Does that apply here?   Let's just say when the villain is revealed that I was underwhelmed.