Saturday, November 11, 2023

Now Showing: Watch Dogs

 
Watch Dogs
Genre: Action
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writer: Joshua Collins
Based on the video game
Cast: Gerard Butler, Willem Dafoe, Al Pacino, Daisy Ridley, John Cho, Lea Seydoux, Julian Hilliard, Halston Owen, Tom Ellis, Luke Grimes, Robert Wisdom

Plot: The film begins at a fancy Chicago hotel named The Merlaut. A hacker known as Aiden Pearce (Gerard Butler) is on the scene performing a heist with his partner in crime, Damien Brenks (Willem Dafoe). They are attempting to hack into the bank accounts of the hotel's high rollered patrons. But the heist goes wrong when a mysterious hack in the system triggers a silent alarm, Damien tries to trace the other hacker, and it gives away Damie and Aiden's presence in the network. The Merlaut's owner, Dermot "Lucky" Quinn (Al Pacino) - also an Irish Mob boss, is able to find the identities of Aiden's family: his sister, Nicole (Lea Seydoux) and her kids: Jackson (Julian Hilliard) and Lena (Halston Owen). He puts a hit out on Aiden's family to scare him.
One night, Aiden is taking Jackson and Lena home after sitting for them while Nicole got stuck on a late shift at work. Maurice Vega (Tom Ellis), Quinn's hired gun, begins following Aiden's car. Aiden starts to realize he is being followed and a chase ensues. Aiden tries to shake Vega and maneuver around Chicago, but Vega isn't letting up. Jackson thinks the chase is cool while Lena is terrified. Vega eventually catches up and succeeds with the hit, shooting out the tire and causing the car to flip. Aiden crawls out from under the car, Jackson is ok but can hardly move, but Lena is lifeless. Aiden tries to perform CPR while yelling for help.
The scene fades into a little time passing. There is a funeral being held for Lena. Aiden apologizes to Nicole and promises that he will not sleep until he brings down who is responsible. Nicole tells him its not going to bring Lena back, that Lena would want him to move on. He agrees to not go do anything that will put Nicole, Jackson or himself in further danger in the honor of Lena.

A year later, Aiden and a fixer he hired, Jordy Chin (John Cho) have successfully tracked down Maurice Vega and his gang at Comisky Park. Jordy an Aiden team up to take out the gang. Once Vega is left, Aiden interrogates Vega about who ordered the hit. Vega denies knowing anything. Aiden pulls a gun on Vega, Aiden's clip is empty. Maurice attacks Aiden, but Aiden gets ahold of a Battan and incapacitates Vega. Jordy admits that he emptied Aiden's gun and called the police to cover their tracks. They leave the stadium with Vega. Jordy says he's going to take Vega to a secret location.
A few days later, Aiden stops by Nicole's house. She is throwing a birthday celebration for Jackson, but only between them, Jackson is still having a hard time losing his sister and nearly dying himself, that he only communicates with his mother. Aiden has a gift for Jackson, a new video game he's been wanting forever. Jackson leads Aiden to the living room to play it, and in the middle of the game, Aiden overhears Nicole on the phone. The call doesn't sound good at all, with Nicole telling the person to leave her alone and asks what they want with her. Aiden hacks the phone and hears the caller threatening to break into her house. Aiden is able to track the caller and tells Nicole he will find them, despite Nicole reminding him of the promise he made at her daughter's funeral. Aiden excuses himself from the party, and chases down the caller to beat some info out of him. He hack's the caller's phone to find out someone hired the caller to harass Nicole. Aiden sneaks into a facility that houses Chicago's cTOS system, which is the city's central control network, which grants access to surveillance, traffic lights, information of all citizens. Aiden intends to hack into the cTOS to track down who is responsible for harassing his family.

Aiden receives a call from someone who calls themself 'badboy17' and asks to meet with him. When Aiden shows up, it is revealed that badboy17 is a woman named Clara Lille (Daisy Ridley). She is an associate of a hacking syndicate called Dedsec, who are bent on exposing Chicago's political corruption, namely with the Mayor, as well as Blume, the company behind the cTOS. Clara explains that due to her own skills as a hacker, she would be able to help Aiden find out his sister's harasser, provided he can put his skills to use with Dedsec.

Meanwhile, we cut to a scene where Lucky Quinn is meeting with someone in a parking lot at night. Quinn asks the person if he knows anything about police coming around his hotel, and how he doesn't like the law snooping around places they shouldn't be in. Quinn chokes the person out.

Clara tells Aiden about the information she found about the person harassing Aiden's family. When Aiden arrives at a rendezvous point, he finds out that the person behind Nicole's harassment is none other than Damien. Damien has a prosthetic leg now, showing he received his own form of punishment from Quinn. Its not a warm greeting at all, they argue over who is responsible for the Merlaut job failing, and Damien wants Aiden's help in finding out who the mystery hacker was. Aiden refuses, punches Damien in the gut and says "stop harassing my family, or I will put a bullet between your eyes"

A few days later, Clara and Aiden agree to meet up to talk at a cafe. Aiden and Clara share some banter about their backgrounds, but Aiden is interrupted by a phone call. Aiden excuses himself and leaves the cafe, only to hear Damien saying he's in Nicole's house. Aiden rushes to the house, and finds Damien there with no Nicole. Aiden asks where Jackson is, and Damien says he doesn't know, and that he only kidnapped Nicole, "I'm not that heartless to go after a kid, Aiden" he says. Damien says he'll release Nicole if Aiden agrees to look at a hard drive that will lead to the information of the hacker that ruined the Merlaut job. Aiden accepts the job, Damien hands over the hard drive, says he was having trouble deciphering anything and figures Aiden could put his talent to good use. Damien leaves and Aiden searches frantically through the house to make sure Jackson is ok. Aiden finds Jackson hiding under his deceased sister's bed(never before touched since she died). Aiden is able to get ahold of Jackson's psychologist and gets her to agree to watch Jackson, saying Nicole hasn't been feeling great lately, given that it's been a year since the tragedy.

Aiden and Clara get to work on the hard drive to figure out who that mysterious hacker is. Its a tougher job than they expected. While trying to find any leads, Aiden and Clara are hacked by someone known as 'Default' who reveals a dark secret about Clara: She was hired by an unknown party to track down information on Aiden and Damien after what happened with Merlaut. Aiden cuts Clara off. Feeling like the shit hit the fan, Aiden is walking own a busy street downtown. He happens to catch someone having an interesting phone conversation. Aiden hack's the phone call and the person is talking to a man named Brent Ulster. Brent is guarding Nicole, and the phone call was about Nicole wanting to see her son Jackson and how the person went to her house and didn't see anybody there.

Aiden follows the person down an alley and beats info out of them on where to find Nicole. Aiden shows up at a rundown motel, has a shootout with Brent and saves Nicole. Now reunited with Jackson, Aiden has Nicole agree to take Jackson out of town.

In the next scene, Aiden shows up at a cemetery with flowers and a stuffed animal, to visit Lena's grave. He discovers Clara is already there. She shows complete guilt, crying over what happened and that she never intended Lena to be killed. Aiden takes a spot next to Clara, sets the flowers and the stuffed animal down, tells Clara that Lena used to tell a silly joke about why the chickens cross the road, then imitates a chicken saying 'because'

The camera shows Aiden and Clara from behind, a red dot appears on the back of Clara's shirt. Clara gets shot, Aiden takes cover and gets into a shootout where nobody else gets shot and a car speeds away. Aiden checks on Clara, she is losing consciousness but as she dies, she whispers 'Lucky Quinn'
Aiden understands exactly what it meant and he goes to the Merlaut Hotel. He knocks out some security and goes to Quinn's office. Quinn, as if he were waiting for Aiden, pushes a button that brings up bulletproof glass. In the middle of the confrontation, Aiden hacks Quinn's pacemaker, breaking it and causing Quinn to slowly die in front of Aiden. Quinn turns on a monitor behind Aiden, showing footage of Mayor Donovan Rushmore (Robert Wisdom) killing his secretary after she learned of his dealings with Quinn. Quinn had the footage as blackmail against the Mayor. In his dying breaths, Quinn says that he thought the footage was what Aiden and Damien were after, and says he ordered the hit to prevent losing his leverage.

Aiden is able to hack into the cTOS system shut down the network, and in doing so, it reveals Damien's location at a lighthouse. Aiden finds Damien and holds him at gunpoint. Damien explains that Quinn sent hitmen after Clara, saying she was a liability. Jordy appears with a gun pointed at Aiden, saying he was hired by Damien, ordering Aiden to drop his gun. Aiden shoots at the lamp, causing enough commotion for Aiden to throw Jordy over the side of the lighthouse and shoot Damien dead.

A little more time passes, Jackson and Nicole are at a new house throwing a housewarming party with Aiden. Nicole says the old house just had too many sad memories. Aiden gets a call from Jordy, who says he survived being thrown over the lighthouse. He says he wants to make it up to Aiden and reveals the location of Vega, where he's had him held this whole time, telling him do whatever he wants to him.

The credits roll, and in a mid-credits scene, Aiden arrives at the location. Vega is still beaten up bad, handcuffed to a large pipe in a warehouse's fire alarm room. Aiden confronts Vega about him killing his niece, beating and kicking him, then pulling a gun on him. Vega begs him to pull the trigger. Aiden paces around, aims the gun, he stops, itches his head with the gun, aims the gun at Vega.


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