Words Mike Beck
Warning; don’t go digging in the dirt, you’re gonna unearth all sorts of stuff. That’s the discomforting characteristic that drives The Hummingbird Project, a title that links both something the bird in subject performs, & a desired goal aimed for by its protagonists, in this buddy suspense/drama (I’ll let you discover those references for yourself).
Jesse Eisenberg plays Vincent, an ambitious young entrepreneur in the making, who has an idea that’ll reward both him & his cousin Anton (expertly played against by Skarsgård) with a literal economic stockpile. Vincent has theorised a way that will revolutionise the Share-market racket, if he can build a high-speed fiber-optic cable across a vast chuck of the U.S, thus enabling stock profits to be transferred from his competitors hands & into his.
They have the brains, in the tech-savvy mind of spectrum challenged Anton, & the brawn (drill expert Mark Vega, played by Mando), but need a benefactor to help them plant the line. This is where the fun & games start, as the cousins’ former boss Eva Torres (Salma Hayek) ups the anti to a cat & dog fight with her power moves (& dressing).
THP (abbrev), unlike its anticipated title & trailer, does not fly along swiftly. I’d recommend you grab a coffee before taking your seats, as the slowish-paced screenplay spreads out its action in short bursts, & as such it never threatens to really take off.
There are however many lessons to be learnt all along the way, especially for young Vincent, as the constant presence of maps, roads, aerial shots (of crossroads & barriers), & clever landscape/surface transitions allude to. These visual metaphors help build Vincent’s character arc, & in the end unpredictably reveal the answer to the question that initiated his desire to take on his vision.
Don’t expect THP to delve deeply into some of the themes & character motives presented in its near 2 hour duration. You’ll only be disappointed. It does though offer many distinct references; subtle observations, one of which is the ongoing journey of humanity itself, & much like the films ending, has much more road to travel.