Antitrust

Just about the time the fur was really flying between Microsoft and the Justice Department in 1999, MGM green-lighted this rip-off of The Firm that substitutes a thinly-veiled Microsoft clone in the role of evil corporation instead of a law outfit. Low-rent, pretty boy matinee idol Ryan Phillippe stars as a genius programmer (geek credibility: zero), head-hunted away from his own start-up dot-com to a job at N.U.R.V., where he stumbles on to a giant technology conspiracy masterminded by a monopoly-happy Bill Gates surrogate C.E.O. (Tim Robbins). A transparent thriller from the recycle bin, transcribed into a laptop computer and retrofitted with an MP3 soundtrack, MTV editing and a cast of beautiful people (Claire Forlani, Rachel Leigh Cook) where the nerds should be, Antitrust is not a necessary purchase. (R. Blackwelder)