We should be making movies about great men, not scumbag computer-salesmen

Rating: 5/10 (5 February 2016)

I was actually expecting it to be good, or at least a lot better then the stupid 'Jobs' flick with Kutcher. It's directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. These guys have proved to be some of the most majorly talented people in Hollywood. Here's the problem: they were trying to find the human angle in a biopic about a guy mostly remembered for his company or the products it cranked out. This angle is his daughter Lisa. To glue it all together they use the product launches of 3 major Apple products as a backdrop. On paper that might have sounded quite brilliant but in reality it's not. Why not? Because Steve Jobs was an asshole. The film does not try to sweep that under the carpet, no sir. It actually is quite proactive in correctly pointing out what a miscreant Mr. Jobs is/was. Jobs never gave credit where credit was due (Woz asks Steve to acknowledge the Apple 2 team and he refuses - several times), he was a tyrant who pressured people unto creating (supposedly) great things while he himself did nothing (he explains that in the films as being the orchestrator and the engineers are the orchestra). There is a scene with Woz (he did always seem to be the most rational guy in the movie as well as in real life) where he says to Steve Jobs: You can't write code. You're not an engineer. You're not a designer. You can't put a hammer to a nail. Jobs was just a Snake Oil salesman, he did not change the world. He did not even made revolutionary products, he made things that smarter people thought of before, and he stole it and marketed them as his own. The thing that should make him more human (the relationship with his daughter) makes him come off as an even bigger douchebag. He denies being her father (knowing full well he is), is not very friendly to her or her mother. Refuses to pay her 25K $ tuition while he has millions in the bank. Look, I understand biopics about great people who accomplished great things need to be made, but here's the reason why I dislike this movie despite them not holding back on showing Jobs' unpleasant side: he does NOT deserve it. Steve Jobs was no creative genius, nor a good father or even a pleasant guy. He was a bully who pushed people with much more skill then him to make a product he presented as being his brainchild. Steve Jobs sold himself as much as his products by giving no-one credit. But are these the sort of people we want to make films about? I don't think so. And the human angle...sorry but the film turned out to be an overly long yammering sessions between Jobs and his wife, daughter and coworkers. And instead of feeling compassion or even empathy for this scumbag, I felt contempt and boredom. This is not the sort of films we want to give Oscars to, I don't care who made them or played in them. This film (at the moment of writing) made even less money than the Kutchter vehicle 'Jobs', which clearly points out people DO NOT care about egomaniac 'creative geniuses' like Jobs. Heck, 2 days after he croaked the world had already forgotten him.