Every bit as flawed and brilliant as the man himself

Rating: 8/10 (30 October 2015)

According to the most recent of several Apple-founder biopics, Steve Jobs the man (Fassbender) was a delusional, self-absorbed pioneer with a God-complex to end all god-complexes. He was a less-than-fun dude, to say the least, who changed the helped world. I was hyper-aware that the thoughts I was taking on his faulty and fruitful life were being noted on a device that he created, one that 40 years ago would've taken up a large conference room and now fits in my pocket. These huge revelations have become his legacybut should they have? Fassbender, Boyle and writer Sorkin, each among the best at their jobs, propose that Steve's professional successes may have been the cause of his personal flaws. The plot is a screen writing construction; set during three different product launches and the minutes that lead up to them, Jobs (barely) tries to balance his two children, the more important his current product. The entire film is Sorkin's patented "walking-and-talking" trademark, yet never drags even at its 2+ hours length. Director Boyle, while relatively restrained, finds plenty of appropriate moments to display his skill for visual pop. However, the main cinematic thrills all come from the dialogue, as if the words are explosions in an action movie. Some people criticize Sorkin (Social Network, "West Wing") because his dialogue doesn't feel natural, the rapacious repartee undercut by over-explanation, and moments standing out as feeling "written". However, I usually just find myself wishing my friends and I spoke the way he writes. Add in line-deliverers like Fassbender, Winslet, Rogen, Daniels, and Stuhlbarg, Jobs end result is a hypnotic and highly entertaining capsule of a man at the center of the computer generation.