‘Disconnect” is an e-“Crash,” using perilous online obsessions instead of race to link a broad range of characters, this time in upstate New York.
An uncharacteristically hard-edged Jason Bateman leads an excellent cast as a media lawyer whose son (Jonah Bobo) falls for a Facebook prank perpetrated by a high-school classmate (Colin Ford). The classmate’s ex-cop dad (Frank Grillo) is investigating the online defrauding of a grieving couple (Paula Patton, Alexander Skarsgård).
Meanwhile, an ambitious TV reporter (Andrea Riseborough), whose firm is represented by the Bateman character, does an interview with a teen boy (Max Thieriot) who lives in a house full of kids who perform for an illicit porn site.
Director Henry-Alex Rubin, who was nominated for an Oscar for the doc “Murderball,” seemingly alludes to the Tyler Clementi case and other well-publicized episodes of online bullying. His is a dismally familiar take on shattered attention spans and inhumane behavior enabled by impersonal technology. Yet none of the characters can be written off as entirely heartless.
Still, soulful though the film is, melodrama gradually sneaks in, and then it takes over. Rubin doesn’t finally deliver a new spin on what our iGadgets are doing to us. Instead, tech turns out to be merely a device that allows Rubin to finish up with lots of guns and hugs.