Ah, the halcyon days of 2001. The
tragic death of Aaliyah shocked a nation, a boozy Ben Affleck did a stint in
rehab, and a peerless mangler of the English language named George W. Bush had
just started bumbling his way into the history books. Austin Chick's August takes audiences on a magic carpet
ride back to that bygone age, but the era it's obsessed with began at the tail end of the
previous millennium. August is a brooding, boring indie drama about the death of the
culture-wide hallucination that was the dot-com bubble, and the moment when
countless dot-com millionaires on paper became real-life paupers.
Sporting a deeply unflattering
pubic-hair mustache/tiny-goatee combo, Josh Hartnett stars as a cocky online
entrepreneur whose world is collapsing as one impractical new venture after
another dies an unmourned death. Hartnett is desperate to stay afloat in a
toxic business environment, but his arrogance and recklessness threaten to
destroy his flimsy empire.
Hartnett's business is called Land
Shark, which seems appropriate, since he has the fish's cold black eyes.
Unfortunately, he has the warmth, personality, and vulnerability of a shark as
well. In a fatally underwritten lead role, Hartnett emerges as neither a
sympathetic hero nor a charismatic anti-hero. Mostly he's just an asshole,
which makes it hard to care about the fate of him or his screwed-up company.
Accordingly, August's few memorable moments luxuriate in schadenfreude. First, Hartnett's
would-be master of the universe is dressed down by father Rip Torn, who talks
witheringly of visiting Hartnett's business and being struck only by the
tragicomic sight of bored employees eating Oreos. In a virtuoso display of how
a great actor can transcend his forgettable surroundings, Torn imbues the word "Oreos"
with bottomless vitriol. Later, David Bowie contributes an equally indelible
cameo as a powerful businessman who takes great pleasure in shattering Hartnett's
delusions and putting him in his place. Nathan Larson's jittery electronic
score captures the anxious uncertainty of the weird cultural era between the
dot-com bust and 9/11, but otherwise Chick's underwhelming exploration of
post-millennial angst is as empty and vacant as its protagonist's inexpressive
peepers.