SILK ROAD | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Tiller Russell (15, 117 mins)
A plodding fact-based drama, concerning a darknet website which sold drugs using Bitcoin, that never fully engages. Based on a Rolling Stone article by David Kushner, Silk Road follows Jason Clarke as ‘doorkicker’ DEA cop Nick Bowden, busted down to cyber-crime following some old school insubordination. He stumbles across the Amazon/eBay of drug dealing via a snitch (Darell Britt-Gibson) and sets about trying to bring it down. That network is called Silk Road: its founder Ross Ullbricht, played by Nick Robinson, is an idealist who believes himself a crusader, smashing the system by creating a website that can sell narcotics, guns and other things requiring clandestine distribution.
Initially it’s a bit of fun, as the drugs get sold untraceably via Bitcoin and delivered by the Postal Service in vacuum-sealed packages. This soon brings in the big bucks, but Ullbricht soon finds his creation spiralling out of his control. When his supplier Curtis Clark-Green (a cameo from Paul Walter Hauser) is traced by Clarke’s cop while working from his home computer, the game is up. The cop, however, has other ideas: sidelined by younger, snide, less experienced bosses, he decides to use Ullbricht to make him some money and help his daughter into an expensive school, via a shakedown. As the net tightens around both of them, the tension never really escalates.
Silk Road wants to be another Social Network, but lacks the depth and nuance. Ullbricht’s entitled arrogance makes him hard to care about, self-interest reigning, though Clarke is fine as the grizzled cop railing against both his wet-behind-the-ears co-workers and Ullbricht’s naivety. The script clunks at times, a preachy voiceover lacks weight and final-act pontificating rings hollow in a solid but ultimately unengaging drama.
Out now on digital platforms
words KEIRON SELF images LIONSGATE