Overrated and overhyped

Instant Favorite.

Great Film overall

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

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.

In New York City, during the George W. Bush Administration, handsome tattooed Josh Hartnett (as Thomas "Tom" Sterling) struggles to keep his multi-million dollar "dot.com" business going, after the stock market slides downward in "August" of 2001. His partner, the "creative genius" of the organization, is Adam Scott (as Joshua "Josh" Sterling), a nervous new papa. Mr. Hartnett is optimistic, even when it comes to beautiful brown-skinned ex-girlfriend Naomie Harris (as Sarrah).Singer-musician David Bowie has a cameo, as wheeler-dealer mogul after Hartnett's business.Unfortunately not a great film, but "August" should put director Austin Chick and cinematographer Andrij Parekh on a watch list; their green-hued New York looks rich. Showing off his long torso, Hartnett still needs that great movie role; besides looking good, he performs the unfocused character well. With a tight soundtrack and trendy script ("My bad", "Hey yourself"), this "August" doesn't stick because the short-lived drama is, like Hartnett's character says, "so over" and "way over." ***** August (1/22/08) Austin Chick ~ Josh Hartnett, Adam Scott, Naomie Harris, Robin Tunney

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.

This is the surprise of the year so far for me.This excellent little film tells a story of two brothers and their struggling company in a timeline that just precedes 9/11. Several people on IMDb have commented that they don't see why the movie needed to be "cheapened with a 9/11 theme" or some such nonsense. Let's be clear: this movie is not about 9/11 but this was historically a crucial point for the dot-com bubble.The movie does actually a wonderful job highlighting these events, without spelling them out in some awkward exposition. The story focuses mostly on one of the brothers: The Charismatic Tom (played by Josh Hartnett), who mostly handles the business aspects. Director Austin Chick does a good job immersing us in his life, his lifestyle, his struggles and his ambiguities. His uneasy rapports with his brother Joshua, co-founder of the company "Landshark", who is the quiet "tech guy" behind the operation. With his parents. His former girlfriend. Various other persons in his life and business dealing. It's an absolutely fascinating portrait. What really helps is Hartnett's performance. Now, I'm sorry to say I never was a fan of this fairly popular actor and he had failed to impress me until now... but this has changed. Hartnett is in fact the main strength of this movie, makes the story come alive and shines among a very, very solid cast around him. Tom's role as a confident, brash young guy who must keep appearance and keep his company afloat while he knows it's going down (along with his personal life) required a good acting palette.It is a strength of the movie that it manages to push both the story of Tom and present an interesting portrait of this time period where economically, things were crashing. What we have here is a movie that could very well have been boring to death due to its topic (finances are a fairly abstract thing, and usually not terribly interesting unless they're your own) but instead becomes fascinating. In many ways, it is reminiscent of Wall Street. Various speeches that Tom delivers and his bout of negotiations lead to several strong moments.This is a great movie. Where pretty much every scene is worthwhile and supports the overall themes that are pushed. Director Chick seems to have a purpose with every element presented and even the elements not present. Consider: we never get to know what Landshark does. At all. Which might seem weird yet is terribly fitting since along with other shooting star companies of the time, it was all a smoke screen anyway.Great movie, probably a must buy for those who have an interest in the dot-com bubble.