Remember when Yahoo! went public and their stock price eclipsed $200 per share? The fast-money frenzy swept up investors and computer nerds alike, transforming the internet into a new-age gold rush where fame and fortune was to be found for hard workers.
However, for many talented go-getters, the party did not last long. In August, director Austin Chick rewinds the clocks to late summer 2001 when Ben Affleck entered rehab, Aaliyah died, and the young upstart internet companies who were millionare-hot in January cooled off in a big way.
Tom Sterling (Josh Hartnett, in his best grown-up performances) is a cocky young dotcom entrepreneur and CEO of LandShark. His brother and co-founder Joshua (Adam Scott) is the programming genius behind the company, but Tom is LandShark's mouth and a very knowledgable one at that. Chick sticks with Tom in nearly every scene and fully captures his swagger and way with words, none better than in the first example of Tom at work. With stock prices beginning to dip, Tom successfully convinces a client to hire LandShark without seeing a proposal, his track record and bravado confidence enough proof that LandShark is the right choice. The client is initially insulted by Tom's lack of preparation, yet amidst Joshua's apologies, the client is drawn to Tom's attitude.
A similar scene occurs at an information conference where Tom, the keynote speaker, fails to prepare a speech, yet out of nowhere pulls a rousing soliloquy on the future of the internet. His fellow young technophiles are thrilled by the passion of his words and his doubting co-workers, who minutes before were sure of on-stage disaster, congratulate him on his unscripted brilliance. Tom is an interesting man, one whose company is desirable due to his electric personality, yet who is equally despicable for his abundant ignorance.
This love/hate relationship with Tom lasts throughout the film. He is a character with appealing energy and a thirst for success, but he's also so infatuated with the boom rise LandShark had that he's unwilling to change his business tactics once the market shifts. As with many wunderkinds who peak early, Tom's confidence, which when mixed with millions of dollars transforms into ego, becomes his downfall. At work, he has surrounded himself with a business-saavy COO (Robin Tunney) and CFO (Andre Royo), but while they consistently look out for LandShark's future, Tom views their lifesaving advice as cowardly. He's unable to accept that he is no longer on top and his risky plan to outlast current threats to his company are downright scary.
His home life is just as self-destructive. His parents (Rip Torn and Caroline Lagerfelt) are skeptical of the longevity of their sons' success and that doubt leads to angry confrontations on Tom's part. Joshua increasingly cannot handle his brother's poor business skills, especially when he has a wife a new baby to support. And when an old flame (Naomi Harris) reenters his life, sparks fly but Tom's consistent inability to change likewise results in disaster on the personal front.
Chick presents the tragedy of Tom amidst a somewhat convincing 2001. The styles, attitude, Seattle graininess, and soundtrack (including a well-placed Radiohead number) are there, but the time-appropriate news footage feels superfluous and gimmicky. August is fine without such tricks. It's a gangster/drug lord film without the violence and narcotics, a portrait of ambition gone awry in a time when opportunity felt widespread. Tom represents the entrepreneur in everyone, another cautionary tale of demise by greed. But because he struggles during a recent era, in the now-distant memory of immediate pre-9/11 society to which the U.S. strives to return, the tragedy is far more complex and appealing than August's Scarface cousins.