Mr Baker is a compulsive mind game developer working for a company in Japan, obsessed with learning the code to a puzzle he can't solve which drives him to virtual ruin. Unraveling at the loss of his job, his partner (a journalist covering violent riots in Turkey), and emotionally abusive toward a sympathetic prostitute, he's confronted by a mysterious co-worker who offers him wisdom and potentially the elusive answer he now desperately needs.
The central character is well articulated, and perhaps there's some neurodivergence to his unusual behaviour, but his gradual decline into total self annihilation over the fate of a puzzle is a bit too incredible to accept. The fact that the answer might also be responsible for a sudden economic shock the world is experiencing, evokes a much bigger concept than a film of a this scale & budget can handle effectively.
Japan location work adds some cultural interest, but the film is too talky and technically lacking to create any momentum nor hold the attention. Cardboard performances in which actors engage in long, supposedly intellectual discourse is at best tedious, though it often sounds pretentious.
I think the concept might've worked better if it had ditched the insider trading/ global anarchy subplot, and instead invested in something on a smaller scale, less cerebral with more immediate emotional impact.
The central character is well articulated, and perhaps there's some neurodivergence to his unusual behaviour, but his gradual decline into total self annihilation over the fate of a puzzle is a bit too incredible to accept. The fact that the answer might also be responsible for a sudden economic shock the world is experiencing, evokes a much bigger concept than a film of a this scale & budget can handle effectively.
Japan location work adds some cultural interest, but the film is too talky and technically lacking to create any momentum nor hold the attention. Cardboard performances in which actors engage in long, supposedly intellectual discourse is at best tedious, though it often sounds pretentious.
I think the concept might've worked better if it had ditched the insider trading/ global anarchy subplot, and instead invested in something on a smaller scale, less cerebral with more immediate emotional impact.
