Pirates of Silicon Valley [1999]: That's How You Make a Film on Steve Jobs

The day I saw the trailer of jOBS, I could sense that something is terribly wrong with it. Yes I am talking about that Ashton Kutcher movie that looked highly commercial and glamorous. The film came and as I expected, it was not appreciated by many including me.
Why did I sensed so? That's because I saw a better film on Steve Jobs and Bill Gates earlier and this was not even close to what I felt while watching Pirates of Silicon Valley.
It was only after Steve Jobs death, I did some YouTube research on him and in the process I found this gem. Pirates of Silicon Valley is a biographical drama about the constant rise and rivalry between Apple and Microsoft and before that the way jobs and Gates crossed paths. The film starts with the famous 1984 Apple commercial made by Ridley Scott [JG Hertzler], then the film moves to 1997, where Steve Jobs [Noah Wyle] announces his return to Apple and the company’s deal with Bill Gates’ [Anthony Hall] Microsoft. The movie then flashes back to 1971, the time when both Apple and Microsoft were not even ideas and introduces Steve Wozniak [co-founder of Apple, played by Joey Slotnick].Meanwhile at Harvard, we come across a couple of nerds and found that they are Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and some other Microsoft names we know now. This is basically a film on Steve Jobs of which Bill gates was given a large part but at the end of the day, it remains a film on Jobs. I wish this film could be more balanced on portraying Gates, but what we witness is Bill Gates practicing his ruthless tricks to get Microsoft some quick success and actually succeeding in it. It shows how jobs had a spiritual and artistic way to things with which he cannot compromise; perfectionism was such an obsession for jobs that time and again he had to go harsh on his employees. On the other hand, Bill Gates is more logical and negotiable and can be reasoned but showcased more as an opportunist. Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Hall as Bill Gates are the two main leads and the two pillars of this film, both playing their part to perfection. I never saw a biography where the characters looked this much convincing for the real people they are portraying. As far as I went reading about the credentials of this film, I learnt that many of the information we came to know from this film were accurate. The Garage where Jobs and Wozniak started Apple, Xerox not realizing the potential of their creation, the commercial made by Ridley Scott was all exactly as it were in real life. Though there were a few misinformation as well like many events happened at different places and on different dates but it was all simplified in chronological order, Apple Lisa was never a successful product and Microsoft stealing from Apple, though quite true, was shown in a little emphasized way. But Apart from the information you learn, I‘d suggest you to watch this movie for the performances by the actors. Noah Wyle plays Steve Jobs to perfection and even though Jobs himself disliked the movie; he liked Noah’s portrayal of him. Jobs called Noah Wyle after watching Pirates of Silicon Valley. He told Wyle that while he "hated the movie" and "hated the script," he thought that "you were good" and that "you do look like me."  Jobs then told Wyle: "Listen, we do this thing every year called the Macworld convention. It's in New York, at the Javits Center. There will be about 10,000 people there. And I think it would be hilarious if you came out on stage dressed as me and did the first five minutes of my keynote address. Are you interested?" Wyle agreed and later recalled that. [Source: Wikipedia] Movie Geek's Rating: ★★★★½ Cast: Noah Wyle, Anthony Hall, Joey Slotnick Directed by: Martyn Burke ------------------------- Author: Amritt Rukhaiyaar [This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]