August
By Marshall Fine
Rating:
Who's in it: Josh Hartnett, Naomie Harris
What it's about: In the summer of 2001, a high-flying website entrepreneur tries to keep his company from crashing as the Internet bubble bursts.
Paper profits: Hartnett has never been much of an actor but this dark, aggressive role finally reveals some talent. He plays a hustler who, along with his brother (Adam Scott), has pushed his Internet startup to the top of the stock market charts - but now faces collapse. Can he fast-talk it through a potentially deadly cash shortage?
While this modest indie offers high-tension plotting, it's real substance is the contrast between Hartnett's charismatic, hard-charging business persona and his intimacy-challenged real-life relationships: with his brother, with his parents, with the former girlfriend (Harris) who pops back into his life. Hartnett captures the lost, lonely quality that the character's bravado tries to disguise with a subtlety and depth the actor has rarely shown before. And, despite the fact that this story is set in August 2001, it's refreshingly NOT a 9/11 story.
Long story short: Hartnett's stock is rising.
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