Why the fuck should you watch “The Hummingbird Project”? • You like big drilling machines, big money and bold boys seeking big buck. • You would like to know what kind of CEO Salma Hayek would be if she worked in the financial sector. • You just lost money on trading Bitcoin and you are looking new ways to lose some more money. • You like Hummingbirds — they are the kings of nature, man.
What if I told you that there is a movie out there, which tells a story about two guys who want to build a fiber-optic cable line between Kansas and New Jersey? Would that be something you might be interested in? Because this is the plot of “The Hummingbird Project”. No Michael Bay cable explosions. No Salma Hayek sex scenes. No martial arts. No time-travel. No Tom Cruise running past the window. Okay, to be fair there is a lot of money involved (and you know what that means), some conflict between the guys and their former employer plus some health issues along the track that tries to build some tension. But if we leave that aside “The Hummingbird Project” is about the ups and downs of doing a big ass (I mean Nicki Minaj big) construction project. You know, dealing with bureaucracy, hustlin’ some money from investors, yelling at unreliable subcontractors, overcoming unexpected shit that the nature throws at you, and so forth. All the stuff that make you think, why the fuck should I watch this in an almost 2 hour long film.
Ok, there a few reasons though, why this premise is interesting. One is the actors. Alexander Skarsgård, who has set a side his sexiest man status and shaved his hair (All hair, you ask? Yes. I Know you were asking that question in your mind.), plays a socially awkward genius type quite nicely, while Jesse Eisenberg gives his regular fast-talking overachieving nervous template that bought him a lot of fame in Social Network. There’s also Salma Hayek as their ruthless and vindictive boss, who takes a welcomed brake from playin’ silly comedy roles. And the other reason is, well, capitalistic greed in financial sector. It is quite fascinating to see what is the algorithm driven High-Frequency Trading scene like, where every millisecond counts.
But unfortunately “The Hummingbird Project” is no “The Big Short” or “Wolf of Wall Street”, which are super entertaining and thought-provoking films about similar field of business. Its just poorly structured film about a pipe project spiced with some stupid plot devices, uneven tone, mediocre visuals and obvious attempts to create tension. But hey, could it even be something more with such premise? Maybe only with Nolan in the director’s chair, but his probably too busy enjoying his money baths at the moment.
Why the fuck you shouldn’t watch “The Hummingbird Project”? • You think that themes of the film should be explored instead of trying to create boring tension with badly set motifs. • You are not a Bitcoin miner and believe that money should be made by hard manual labor, not with exploitive and sneaky algorithms. • You expect something stylish, fun and cool like The Big Short, but with The Hummingbird Project you get a movie about drilling through water, mountains, acquired land, dreams, investments, and health. • Your favorite movie with Salma Hayek is “Desperado”. Watching this movie wouldn’t change that.
