Antitrust

Tim Robbins doesn't always choose the best scripts, but he always plays the most interesting characters.\nIn the techno-thriller "Antitrust," he plays a megalomaniac owner of a software company who'll stop at nothing to dominate the marketplace. Gary Winston has the thinly veiled look and feel of Microsoft's Bill Gates, down to the Justice Department proceedings against his company. He also has the reputed temper and charisma of Apple's Steve Jobs, even to his obsession with creativity. As usual, Robbins plays his character impeccably. The rest of the movie has some flaws.\nThis could have been a good film, appealing to computer geeks everywhere. The problem is it creates a paradox. The only people who'll go to see it will be computer geeks, but they'll be turned off because the filmmakers clearly lack a knowledge of the technology they try to use. Instead, they try to make the world of computer software more interesting to general audiences by making the climactic scenes ridiculously intense, which only results in inducing laughter in the audience rather than fear or suspense. Microsoft might be a monopoly, but I hardly think it's gone so far as to kill programmers for the purpose of stealing their software.\n"Antitrust" is a slightly above-average "B" movie, whose only real purpose is to promote the open-source community and introduce a few newcomers to the silver screen. If you really want to see an interesting film about the computer industry with a dead-on imitation of Bill Gates, go rent last year's TNT made-for-TV movie "The Pirates of Silicon Valley"