Film Review: SILK ROAD (2021): Tech-Narcotics Thriller Offers Easy Viewing In Lieu Of Deeper Interrogation

Silk Road Review

Silk Road (2021) Film Review, a movie directed by Tiller Russell, and starring Nick Robinson, Jason Clarke, Alexandra Shipp, Daniel David Stewart, Jimmi Simpson, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Paul Walter Hauser, Jennifer Yun, Kenneth Miller, Katie Aselton, Lexi Rabe, David DeLao, Mark Sivertsen, and Will Ropp.

Any current or former stoner who came of age in the past decade has undoubtedly heard mention of the Silk Road site at some point in their life, most likely in the comments section of a weed-focused subreddit that they were on at one in the morning whilst perusing psychedelic GIF art instead of doing their homework for their 8:00 AM class. But if they were like me and were too neurotic, chicken-shit, and technophobic to even try anything that would potentially breach the realms of cybercrime, then that darknet marketplace was a website that they wouldn’t dare type into any sort of browser (nice try, FBI agents reading this).

All of that’s to say that Tiller Russell’s new documentation of the rise and fall of the infamous Tor website, appropriately titled Silk Road, gives a decent albeit dramatized version of events to scratch that curious itch through voyeuristic cinematic form.

Ross Ulbricht (Nick Robinson) is a twenty-something Texan with unlimited confidence but no real commitment. With college degrees galore and a string of failed businesses, he returns to Texas to brainstorm the next steps towards his ultimate (and self-admittedly corny) purpose: to change the world. Spurred by a seemingly off-hand suggestion and fueled by his libertarian ideologies, Ross develops an encrypted darknet marketplace for users to sell and purchase illicit drugs via Bitcoin. His best friend Max (Daniel David Stewart) and his girlfriend Julia (Alexandra Shipp) stand by him and offer encouraging sentiments but also wary pleas for caution, urging Ross not to let his ego get the better of him.

Meanwhile, across the country in Baltimore, disgraced FBI/DEA agent Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke) stumbles across the Silk Road in his early days in the cybercrimes department – a position he’s been relocated to after a failed mission and psychotic breakdown. While his new and younger bosses feel he’s too old and out of touch to really offer any genuine insight, Bowden and his informant Rayford (Darrell Britt-Gibson) start their own mini-investigation. Soon, Bowden is infiltrating himself with the site’s big-name dealers and operators, getting closer and closer to Ross himself.

However, Bowden begins wading into legally dangerous territory with his unauthorized contact with Ross, who himself begins to spiral into paranoia as the Silk Road outgrows his initial prospects. Things heat up as the government agencies encroach on both of their operations, leading Ross and Bowden to a crossroads of ethical turmoil.

While the film borrows heavily from other giants in the “rise of the sociopathic genius” subgenre (hello The Social Network), Silk Road denotes itself by focusing on the relative ineptitude of all those involved rather than just their misanthropic obsessiveness. Russell leans a little too heavily on the “old man can’t understand new technology” sight gags as Bowden struggles to send e-mails and connect his camera to the computer, but when spliced together with Ross having to teach himself the workings of Tor networks and coding it nicely emphasizes their parallel fish-out-of-water positions. The film is not afraid to call out these men’s egotistical drive, either, with Julia and Max continuously questioning the Silk Road’s growing influence and Bowden’s bullheaded thinking being called out by Rayford, his wife (Katie Aselton), and his 26-year-old boss (Will Ropp) alike.

This plays nicely into Russell and the filmmakers’ interrogations of the players’ philosophies, which is when Silk Road is at its strongest. Between Ross’ libertarianism creating moral quandaries and cognitive dissonance as the items on Silk Road become more lethal than just a bit of pot or acid, and Bowden’s own disregard of legality via quasi-vigilantism and money laundering, Silk Road creates a nicely palatable gray area wherein these characters are dutifully scrutinized rather than just given a free pass.

But that’s just it: those ideological interrogations are too easy to swallow. Silk Road points out that gray area but rationalizes that as enough, rather than using it to further examine corruption in the United States’ legal structure and/or the innate selfishness of right-leaning politics.

Julia rightfully holds Ross to the flame when she excoriates the site’s tolerance for selling crystal meth and automatic rifles (the former of which Ross legitimizes as being safer than buying it on the street; the latter of which he writes off with a drunken muttering of “Second Amendment!”), but we never get the feeling that these criticisms and their implied impact are being taken to heart beyond a growing sense of paranoia – by Ross or the filmmakers themselves. While Robinson astutely portrays Ross as the peach-fuzzed, flip-flop-wearing white boy you’d see at your campus’ student union arguing with someone over how the market will eventually end discrimination because of the dictates of capital, and Clarke as the grizzled man who’s irritated at his own supposed abandonment by the modern age, Russell is more or less concerned with the outline of historical events and the characters’ places on said timeline than he is at the psychologies behind them. It’s more of a thematic scrape than an inquisitional dig, which leaves a bit to be desired.

But for a techno-crime-thriller to satiate your late-afternoon ennui, Silk Road does the job. Between competent performances by its leads, some terrific supporting roles (Britt-Gibson and Paul Walter Hauser are the real knockouts), and some fun bits of suspense aided by an eclectic Mondo Boys score, this makes for prime easy viewing.

Nothing too dangerous, so no need to invest in your own ideological VPN.

Rating: 6/10

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