Meet Tom Sterling (Josh Hartnett), CEO of Landshark, a revolutionary new dotcom company that’s going to make him a millionaire many times over. That is, if it can stay afloat long enough to get out of stock market ‘lock-up’.
On paper, Tom’s got it all: A flash car, a loft apartment and his own hip, one-of-a-kind start-up business. He’s got style, charm and an ego the size of Manhattan. He’s the ‘Jerry McGuire’ of the internet set, with enough self-confidence to back it all up. Enough of it to get through a crucial business meeting with major Wall Street investors without so much as a concept of a proposal on paper. Enough of it to be appointed key-speaker at a conference of fellow internet entrepreneurs, then stand up in front of the smartest people in the industry without even preparing a speech. Enough of it to justify – scratch that – demand, from his accountant the purchase of a brand new Learjet that’ll cost his cash-strapped company upwards of a million bucks a month, before their ‘product’ has even been launched. Tom Sterling thinks he understands business. Tom Sterling is about to get a nasty shock.
When the bottom suddenly falls out of the dotcom industry, Landshark’s shares plummet and the company looks like it won’t survive the weekend. Suddenly Tom is forced to face some unpleasant facts. His brash over-confidence is alienating his family, not least his younger brother Joshua (Adam Scott), the computer-whiz who invented the Landshark model, who has a wife and child to support and is near breakdown on account of Tom’s cocky attitude and lack of respect for investors and business etiquette…
But then Sarrah (Naomie Harris), an old-flame of Tom’s, re-enters his life and soon shows him the selfish, self-centered bastard he’s become, and his walls come crashing down around him, forcing him to make drastic changes – fast.
With a stellar young cast and a rip-roaring screenplay that will grip you right up to its thrilling conclusion, AUGUST is an era-defining story about risking everything to make one’s dreams reality – and the effects that may have on those who truly love you…
