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Paranoia Blu-ray Review

  • Subtitles: English, Spanish
  • Dubbed: English, Spanish
  • Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
  • Studio: 20th Century Fox
  • Blu-ray Release Date: November 19, 2013
  • Run Time: 90 minutes







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            Paranoia boasts an impressive cast, perfectly balanced with both veteran actors and young stars. Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford carry each scene they are in, while Liam Hemsworth and Amber Heard are pretty to look at while the real actors perform. In the end, however, it is all cancelled out by an uninteresting script that hardly has enough thrills to qualify this as a thriller. Only a twelve-year-old would think this film is intelligent, and the rest of us are just bored. It fits in perfectly as a double feature with Brian De Palma’s equally unimpressive Passion.

     

            Based on the best-selling novel by Joseph Finder, Paranoia is a cat-and-mouse thriller in the business world, and Adam Cassidy (Hemsworth) is the mouse stuck between two deadly feline aggressors. Cassidy works as a lowly employee at a powerful technology corporation dealing primarily with cell phones, but even that job is threatened because of the way he thinks outside of the box. When his boss Nicolas Wyatt (Oldman) fires him, it comes with an interesting offer of espionage. Blackmailed into working for the competition in order to steal their trade secrets, Cassidy finds himself working for another business tycoon; Jock Goddard (Ford).

     

            These two power players bounce back and forth in a game that manipulates and uses Cassidy, and each is certain of their own guaranteed success. Really, it’s just a bunch of unnecessary scenes of Oldman and Ford chewing the scenery in-between the forced plot twists that are never as exciting or surprising as you might hope. The end result of this film leaves the viewer feel more than a little cheated. Heard’s character is especially vapid as a surface-level-only romantic entanglement for our protagonist amidst the espionage.

     

            The Blu-ray combo pack has a DVD and digital copy of the film also included, though the special features are understandably understated. There are a few deleted scenes and three brief promotional featurettes, though none are truly worth getting excited about.

           

           

    Entertainment Value: 5/10

    Quality of Filmmaking: 4/10

    Historical Significance: 1/10

    Disc Features: 2/10

     

     

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