Vertigo Releasing presents Silk Road on digital platforms across the UK from 22 March 2021.
Synopsis
Young, idealistic, and driven to succeed, Ross Ulbricht (Nick Robinson, Love, Simon) creates the internet’s first unregulated marketplace: Silk Road. But when it becomes a multimillion-dollar pipeline for illicit drugs, Ross is set on a collision course with Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke, The Devil All the Time, Zero Dark Thirty), a disreputable and dangerously unpredictable DEA agent, who will use any means necessary to take him down.
Review
I have to admit that the story of Russ Ulbricht somehow passed me by when it hit the headlines in 2013. Silk Road was not a website I was familiar with but nonetheless the trailer for this movie piqued my interest. Seeing a likeable actor such as Nick Robinson taking on a morally ambiguous role was a huge draw for Silk Road and I’m please to say that it lives up to expectations, mostly.
Writer/director Tiller Russell based the film on a Rolling Stone article, ‘Dead End on Silk Road: Internet Crime Kingpin Ross Ulbricht’s Big Fall,’ in 2014. Taking inspiration from the story of Ulbricht and his downfall presents an interesting conundrum. Ulbricht and his ultra-libertarian viewpoint is easily glorified and played as an analogy for the everyday freedoms lost during the last 12 months. Whilst Russell likely didn’t anticipate a global pandemic interfering with his release plans, the impact of liberties lost reflects heavily on Ulbricht’s outlook.
Silk Road works best in its casting. Nick Robinson playing well against type is engaging and perfectly edgy. He reflects Ulbricht’s attitude in a manner which will challenge audience expectations as well as leaving an unpleasant after taste. Whilst his methods – particularly order hits on his detractors – are questionable, Robinson’s Ulbricht is undeniably likeable even in his most egotistical moments. Robinson is perfectly counterbalanced by Jason Clarke. His weary DEA agent, Rick Bowden, should be Ulbricht’s antithesis. But what Tiller Russell does is play the two for their similarities rather than their differences.
Bowden has a checkered past and something to prove. Clarke grizzles at the camera throughout but never fully forgets his need to make things right or his family. That drive to prove himself to the younger agents around him perfectly reflects Ulbricht’s need to prove himself to his own family. Their both trapped under their own feelings of inadequacy and that drives the plot forward in more surprising ways as the runtime ticks by.
Herein lies my biggest issue with Silk Road. Both leads make questionable decisions, albeit for their own heroic reasons. Both believes themselves, with full conviction, to be the hero of their story and as such the other becomes the villain. But Silk Road fails to draw its own conclusion as to who the real villain is. At its end the film leaves Ulbricht somewhat of a victim of Bowden’s methods whilst Bowden himself falls foul of the legal system for trying to protect his family.
Given Robinson and the younger cast members surrounding him, Russell has crafted Silk Road as a more accessible crime thriller. Se7en this is not. Instead the film is constructed almost like a young-adult thriller. The use of technology, tied to the subject matter of the film itself, opens up creative choices which reflect a less traditional thriller. Russell’s approach to opening up the story is commendable even though the final product isn’t wholly satisfying.
The moral ambiguity of the story will be a strong selling point for many viewers. It certainly edges Silk Road ahead of its competition. But its sympathetic standpoint on both its inherently flawed leads may ultimately leave some wanting more.
Verdict
In a story of real life heroes and villains Silk Road is an engaging story with a stellar cast but fails to draw a satisfying conclusion.
From director Tiller Russell, Silk Road stars Nick Robinson, Jason Clarke, Alexandra Shipp (X-Men franchise), Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell, Cobra Kai) and Jimmi Simpson (Westworld, Under the Silver Lake).
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