Silk Road **½ (2021, Jason Clarke, Nick Robinson, Katie Aselton, Jimmi Simpson, Daniel David Stewart, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Lexi Rabe, Will Ropp, Paul Walter Hauser, Alexandra Shipp) – Movie Review

The 2021 American real-life crime thriller film Silk Road, written and directed by Tiller Russell, is very flawed but it certainly has its moments and its plus points, and it is in the interesting category.

Nick Robinson stars as young obsessive narcissist Ross Ulbricht who develops an extremely lucrative illegal website on the dark net, which attracts the attention of troubled older federal agent Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke), who gets crookedly over-involved when he is demoted to a cyber crimes desk job, and whiles away his time setting out to bring down Ulbricht’s empire.

Nick Robinson and Jason Clarke are both excellent actors in their contrasting ways, and they tackle their roles intensely, convincingly and compellingly. The problem is that both the characters they play are extremely unsympathetic, and the film’s good guy is at least as flawed as the bad guy. But then that is the film’s point. They are yin and yang. They are Bruno and Guy in Strangers on a Train.

Also the story is very depressing, without the possibility of a happy ending. Even if you don’t know the story, you know roughly where it’s headed from the start. So a thriller without thrills or surprises then. What’s left is a character study of two of life’s more unpleasant rogues. The script makes a good attempt at understanding and forgiving them, and that is indeed interesting. But a couple of hours in their company are not exactly a nice experience.

Tiller Russell writes good dialogue mostly and directs decently too. He creates atmospheric scenes and the film is full of strongly delivered moments, though they don’t quite cohere into a compelling narrative, as often with true life dramas, however many liberties you want to take with them, and this film starts out strongly suggesting that is what it is doing. What, though, is the point of a true life story, if it doesn’t even plan to tell a true story?

But the main trouble is that Tiller Russell’s characters are hollow men and he hardly bothers to explain why we should interest ourselves in them. He just assumes they are fascinating. When you are writing a screenplay, that’s probably what often happens. But then you need to take a step further, a step outside your characters.

There are other characters in the film but you hardly even notice them. Russell’s not really interested, just like his two main men aren’t really interested. This gives several decent actors a headache. But then who remembers anyone else in Strangers on a Train? Oh yes, Pat Hitchcock, Leo G Carroll, Ruth Roman and Marion Lorne.

Rick Bowden is a fictional composite of real life DEA Agent Carl Force and US Secret Service Special Agent Shaun Bridges, both of whom were convicted of felonies related to theft of assets in the investigation of Ulbricht.

Silk Road was an online black market and the first modern darknet market, launched in February 2011. In October 2013, the FBI shut down the website and arrested Ross Ulbricht as the site’s founder ‘Dread Pirate Roberts’ named after the character in The Princess Bride.

Silk Road was released by Lionsgate on 19 February 2021.

Nick Robinson (born March 22, 1995) starred in The Kings of Summer (2013), Jurassic World (2015), The 5th Wave (2016), Everything, Everything (2017), Love, Simon (2018), and Native Son (2019).

The cast are Jason Clarke as Rick Bowden, Nick Robinson as Ross Ulbricht, Alexandra Shipp as Julia Vie, Jimmi Simpson as Chris Tarbell, Paul Walter Hauser as Curtis Clark Green, Darrell Britt-Gibson as Rayford, Katie Aselton as Sandy Bowden, Lexi Rabe as Edie Bowden, Daniel David Stewart as Max, Will Ropp as Shields, David DeLao as Johnny Marales and Raleigh Cain as Callie.

Tiller Russell’s screenplay is based on the article Dead End on Silk Road: Internet Crime Kingpin Ross Ulbricht’s Big Fall by David Kushner.

Thomas Stearns Eliot: ‘We are the hollow men, We are the stuffed men, Leaning together, Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!, Our dried voices, when We whisper together, Are quiet and meaningless, As wind in dry grass, Or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar.’

 © Derek Winnert 2021 Movie Review

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