seefishbee
"August" is a drama that chronicles the fall, after the dizzying rise of a dot.com start-up company in August of 2001. The plot centers around two brothers, Tom and Josh Sterling and the company they co-started called Landshark. They rapidly become flush with cash and promise. What Landshark actually does is never really explained, but its almost superfluous information. Dot.com companies were everywhere, looking for venture capitalist market niches. Actually, leaving the audience vague about what it is Landshark did, lent to the authentic feel of the time, in which the film is set. The stock market was full of IPO's from all these literally unknown companies that mushroomed up all over America almost overnight. Then, at the end of March of 2001 the dot.com market went into a financial free fall, leaving young millionaires frantic. Many were left with nothing, and sold out stock shares, at abysmal percentage rates, just to get out alive. Tom Sterling, played by Josh Hartnett is the entrepreneur of Landshark, and his brother Josh (Adam Scott), the brain. Tom is faced with a difficult moral dilemma as the company crashes, taking his world with it. Josh has a wife, a newborn, and a mortgage. He wasn't in this business for the high-roller lifestyle, but to provide for his family. Tom's meteoritic success makes him cocky and uncaring. It affects those around him. When he is faced with a defining moment of truth, what he decides, affects others too. There is an excellent character study here, in watching Tom struggle. The film opens with a jump back a few months, and works its way back to the conclusion of the story. It is well shot, with attention to detail regarding the timeline of events occurring circa the second half of 2001. It includes many television coverage clips, and a very relevant music soundtrack to 2001. The film aptly portrays the slick flashy immersion in hipness and money that was attributed to the dot.com minions. The values of the nouveau riche, prior to 9/11, false feelings of invincibility, an infinite Utopian existence, are demonstrated by the careless lifestyle, and attention to material detail. The costume, and set designers did a meticulous job with this. It's evident in the over-accessorized showy offices at Landshark, and the über-cool wardrobe worn by Tom Sterling and his staff. The screenplay is written exceptionally well. It boasts snappy and sarcastic dialog. It also has a lot of detailed Internet and IPO related jargon. Viewers may find this difficult to relate to. I found the script accessible. The basic points needed to set the tone were concise, and the remainder could be inferred from the context and circumstance. In films with a particular subject matter, I don't think it a necessity to dumb things down for the audience. Oversimplifying, in this case would have detracted from the film's authenticity.Josh Hartnett plays Tom Sterling extremely well. He has a weary tough look around his inky dark eyes; by the time we meet him. He runs Landshark with a cavalier attitude and we see him slowly come to the realization that the bubble is bursting. You see him knowing it, yet simultaneously, not wanting to. He really captures the essence of the times suitably, preaching about the power and future of technology, which was characteristic of the era. One of the better ways to learn a lesson is through film. On a meaningful day a film is a moving tale of the human condition dressed up in lots of bells and whistles, to make it more palatable. Hidden deep inside the recesses of an eventful plot, favorite actors, and a colorful feast for the eyes and ears nestles a message, like a pearl in an oyster shell. That's what a film is supposed to do. "August" does just that. We experience an exhilarating roller-coaster ride from an obsolete era, and watch Josh Hartnett's handsome face crinkle with a myriad of emotions, as a pulsing, rhythmic soundtrack filters through our ears, yet, we are learning something. We are learning about the value of family, about self-reparation, about humility.
Roland E. Zwick
In "August," Josh Hartnett plays a cocky, twenty-something entrepreneur named Tom Sterling who, for the past several years (the movie is set in the early 2000s), has been riding the dot.com wave to easy fame and fortune - though he isn't quite prepared, either financially or emotionally, for the crash that is to come. Landshark, the company he founded with his brother, Joshua (Adam Scott) and of which he is currently CEO, has a couple hundred employees on its payroll, but pretty much everyone who works there is at a loss to explain just what it is the firm does or produces. Even worse, the company that was once valued at well over three-and-a-half million dollars is now worth just a paltry fraction of that amount, the "business model" having apparently failed to pan out as expected.As written by Howard A. Rodman and directed by Austin Chick, "August" is essentially a cautionary tale set against the get-rich-quick hysteria that came to dominate in the early days of the internet, when virtually anybody with a half-baked idea and a smidgen of techno-savviness could become a high-stakes player on Wall Street. That many of these people were making their fortunes out of little more than the cyber equivalent of chewing gum and bailing wire – while producing nothing of any real substance or value in the long run – is what eventually led to disaster for so many of them and for the economy as a whole."August" does a reasonably effective job capturing the moral emptiness and emotional shallowness of the characters and the world they inhabit, but, when all is said and done, the movie lacks the dramatic heft and focus needed to turn it into a profound and major work. The minor characters are bland and insufficiently developed, and even Tom is deficient in the kind of depth and shading he would need to make him a representative "tragic hero" for our time. That being said, the movie does offer some intriguing insights into the way the business world works these days and into which type of individual typically succeeds in the new arena. And which type fails.
Kitt Phi
This movie was a total waist of time. The synopsis made the story sound good, but after the first 5 seconds of watching the movie, I knew this movie was going NO WHERE FAST. I've seen over a thousand movies and this one goes some where at the bottom with Aeon Flux & Glitter. EXAMPLE: 1. The Director must have run out of ideas to Shoot the Film, cause for a total of 25 minutes of the movie they show Josh Hartnett walking around or in bed doing nothing/saying nothing. 2. What the Heck is Land Shark, I'm in the IT field and the stuff still didn't make sense. 3. The purpose of the business of Land Shark is never revealed.I hope I save someone's life, because I lost about an hour and a half a mine.
