PARANOIA (review)

Review by Joe Yezukevich

Just when I thought movies this year could not get any worse, August arrives with the abysmal Paranoia.

Liam Helmsworth (the Chad Lowe to Chris Helmsworth’s Rob Lowe) has an unmemorable turn as Adam Cassidy, a “Bridge and Tunnel” Brooklynite (huh?) trying to get to the top of corporate Manhattan by any means necessary.

After he and his tight knit troop of developers blow a presentation to their boss Nicholas Wyatt (a criminally underused Gary Oldman), the gang gets fired. Under Adam’s wing, they blow the remainder of their budget on a night in Manhattan’s trendiest new club.

Now that the money has been embezzled, Wyatt owns Cassidy.

The only way to get out of this indentured servitude is for Cassidy to go to work for Wyatt’s old mentor Jock Goddard (Harrison Ford with a shaved head) and to steal Jock’s secret product in development.

He goes to work, things happen and the movie ends. All the while, I asked myself why this movie was made.

More importantly, I was asking myself why the cast agreed to work on this. The aforementioned Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman are a small part of the cast which is rounded out by Richard Dreyfuss as Cassidy’s sickly father, Sawyer from Lost’s Josh Holloway as an FBI agent, and Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck, Fantastic Four) who plays Wyatt’s psychotic henchman.

Each of these seasoned vets brings his own flavor of bland to his character.

Paranoia is a terrible movie that is best described as The Firm made for the Lifetime Movie Network.

The only thing you have to be paranoid about is a sequel.