Craziness that characterises this and previous bull runs in the world of crypto is nothing new. More experienced and astute observers would find a lot of similarity with Dot Com era, especially in the ways “magic” new technology and its promise allowed people small army of ambitious young people to become rich overnight only to squander such wealth when it turned out that their greed was bigger than their actual talent. Similar kind of story serves as basis for the plot of Purpose, 2002 drama directed by Alan Lazar, one of the rare film to deal with Dot Com excesses while the Dot Com collapse was fresh in the everyone’s memory.
The film was, or at least had reasons to be considered authentic thanks to its co-writer and producer Ronnie Apteker, South African entrepreneur known as founder of country’s first Internet service provider. The plot is, however, set in Silicon Valley and the protagonist, played by John Light, is John Elias, college dropout who is determined to succeed in brave new world of computer technology. His ticket to fame and fortune is brilliant idea that would allow sharing of music and video files over Internet. He gets in touch with Robert Jennings (played by Jeffrey Donovan), classmate whose talent happens to be finding financiers for various project. Two of them found company called Digital Dreams and, using IPO, earn huge amounts of money. John starts to live a good life and that gradually starts to affect not only his relationship with musician girlfriend Lisa (played by Megan Dodds), but also his work. Digital Dreams soon becomes target of hostile takeover and John might lose everything he has worked and fought for.
Made with relatively low budget and as independent production, Purpose might give future Internet historians not only a little bit of insight into what went on during Dot Com era, but also show technical and, more importantly, financial issues that prevented the likes of Youtube or Netflix establishing their hegemony before their time. Unfortunately, the script wraps all that into oversimplified morality story about the young man who “lost his way” when tempted with easy money and beautiful women. The film has surprisingly strong cast that involves notable character actors like Hal Holbrook, Peter Coyote and Mia Farrow. Almost unrecognisable Paul Reiser provides best performance, while Jeffrey Donovan is effective as half-sociopathic yuppie. Unfortunately, Alan Lazar in his first and the only feature film shows that his real passion and forte is music, so Purpose looks quite pedestrian and much cheaper than it actually is. Miscasting of John Lister is another major flaw, and the unconvincing finale makes Purpose quite disappointing. And this is quite shame, because with a little bit more talent this could have been a story from which many of today’s crypto entrepreneurs could learn a lot.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
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