Silk Road is a highly entertaining true-crime tale that features fine direction by Tiller Russell, and is led by an on top of his game Jason Clarke as an old-school-cop who hunts down a new-school-criminal.
It is common for movies based on true stories to take dramatic license, and Silk Road does so with upfront gusto. Written and directed by Tiller Russell (The Seven Five), the 112 minutes Silk Road adapts the true story of an online drug kingpin into a Heat/American Gangster style chase movie, in which the personal and professional lives of an old-school-cop and a new-school-criminal lead them on a collision course. It is a creative decision that works gangbusters.
Silk Road is based on the crimes of Ross Ulbricht, an idealist of intelligent mind and contempt for the government, who creates an e-Bay website on the dark web in which illegal drugs are sold with digital currency the only accepted means of purchase. Soon the website, Silk Road, begins to sell hardcore dugs and illegal weapons as well.
On Ulbricht’s trail is DEA agent Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke). He just completed forced leave for mental illness issues and is demoted to a corner office in the Cyber Crimes unit, where he stands out like a typewriter in a room of iPads. Although delegated as worthless by his young superiors, Bowden gets his hooks in an on-the-run Ulbricht and makes movies to reel him in.
Clarke is excellent as Bowden, an analog man in a digital world who has contempt for a millennial generation that has mistaken intelligence for knowledge and views old school experience as irrelevant. Adding improvisational flourishes to one of the more interesting law enforcement characters in some time, Clarke simply lights up the screen whenever he appears.
Nick Robinson is solid as Ulbricht. While there are times when the angst driven approach to the character aggravates rather than compels, Robinson comes into his own later in the film when Ulbricht has to tackle serious moral dilemmas as his empire crumbles around him. Paul Walter Hauser is a hoot as an internet drug dealer with a bad case of live-in-mums-basement syndrome, and Darrell Britt-Gibson delivers the right amount of tech-exposition in a small yet vital role as an informant.
Editor Greg O’Bryant (The Report) provides Silk Road with the right amount of pace and balance in the to-and-fro between Ulbricht and Bowden’s compelling stories, while the Mondo Boys (Run Hide Fight) continue their stellar work with a driving, pulsating score.
Russell has made a name for himself as a fine documentarian, with streaming shows The Night Stalker and The Last Narc to his name. With Silk Road, he brings his skill of retelling true life stories and adds the right amount of creative liberties to make his narratives work in a compelling and engaging crime story.
