Disconnect (2012)

Mike: Frye, do I look stupid to you? The way I look to Jason? Are you gonna tell me what you're doing in my office?
Frye: It was supposed to be a joke.
Mike: [to Jason] Now you shut up! [to Frye]: What did you say?
Frye: We were just trying to mess with him. It was supposed to be a joke. We didn't think he'd hurt himself.
Mike: What? Who were you messing with? Are you talking about that Boyd kid? You had something to do with that?
Jason: Yes
Mike: You wanna fuck with somebody, you do it to their face. You hear me tough guy?
Jason: Yeah, like you?
Mike: Like me? This is bad. You're in big trouble.
Jason: I'm sorry
Mike: You're sorry because I caught you or you're sorry because there's a father wondering if his son will ever wake up?

Ben (Jonah Bobo) is a school kid with no friends and he finds solace in his music until he is befriended by a Jessica Rhony, another lonely school kid with a similar taste in music and who seems to understand Ben. As Ben pours his heart out about his father, Rich Boyd (Jason Bateman), who thinks "music is a joke", Jessica starts to get intimate with Ben. There's just one catch. Everything happens online and Jessica is just a fake profile created by Jason (Colin Ford) and Frye (Aviard Bernstein).

Derek (Alexander Skarsgard) is a former marine who works in an office "just pushing papers" and is afraid he is becoming just a tool. As his marriage with Cindy (Paula Patton) starts to dissolve after the death of his son, Cindy starts an online relationship with a profile named "fearandloathing" who listens to her when Derek isn't around. As they start to feel the heavy burden of their mortgages, Derek starts gambling online to support the family. As their credit cards get maxed out, an investigator, Mike Dixon (Frank Gillo), suggests it could be the work of "fearandloathing".

 Kyle (Max Thieriot) is a young kid who works for a group that uses kids for online adult cam shows. When Nina (Andrea Riseborough) gets to know about Kyle, she feels she has a story for the news agency she works with. When Nina convinces Kyle to interview without leaking his identity, she is rewarded, but only to be contacted by the FBI to give her source or lose her job. As she gets suspended indefinitely, Nina tries to help Kyle but manages only to push him further and further away as Kyle's loyalty to the group is on the line.

The stories of all these characters are interwoven in a way to make you sympathize for some at one time and disgust later. If Jason is the kid who abuses Ben's trust, he is also the kid who has lost his mother and there's constant tension with his dad, Mike. If Mike is the guy who helps Derek to trace the guy who misused his credit card, he is also the guy who deletes all evidence from Frye's iPad that'd have the kids indicted in Ben's unfortunate incident. As we watch Ben's mother (Hope Davis) and his sister stricken with grief, Rich Boyd gets more and more unstable while trying to get justice for his son.

Disconnect doesn't try to draw a moral line between right and wrong by expecting teenagers to understand the repercussions of online bullying nor does it expect a father to turn in his own son to do the right thing for another man's son. It leaves you thinking for a long time after taking you down a dark road and showing you what could happen. Director Henry Alex Rubin manages to fit in the melodramatic scenes in a way to make it look like a thriller while the haunting background score reminds you of just what it is about. Thanks to the excellent acting by the whole cast, you'll never find a dull moment in the movie. Jason Bateman deserves a mention for his excellent portrayal of a father who wishes he could have seen things coming and while trying to fight the world, knows he is also to blame. Alexander Skarsgard is also someone to watch out for, as this is the second movie that I have seen him in and he doesn't fail to amaze.

Somebody had suggested this movie should be required viewing for teenagers and for anyone who is trying to do something stupid, just do what the title suggests. I couldn't agree more.

Rating: 7.5/10