Movie: Kimi (2022) Caution Spoiler Alert

 Kimi

Came out; 2022

Time; 1 hours 29 minutes

Watched: HBO Max

Rating; R for violence, language and brief sexuality/nudity

IMDB Rating; 6.3/10

Caution; Spoiler Alert

Staring;

Zoe Kravitz as Angela Childs

Bryon Bowers as Terry Hughes

Rita Wilson as Natalie Chowdhury

Devin Ratray as Kevin

Betsy Brantley as Kimi (Voice)

Story Line;

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Seattle, an agoraphobic tech worker discovers evidence of a violent crime while reviewing a data stream, and is met with resistance and bureaucracy when she tries reporting it to her company. To get involved, she realizes she must face her greatest fear by venturing out of her apartment and into the city streets, which are filled with protestors after the city council passes a law restricting the movements of the homeless population

Thoughts;

This movie wasn't bad. You can see Angela going through fight or flight with the entire process.

It kept my attention as you don't know exactly where the movie is going to go

CAUTION; Major Spoiler Alert

Bradley Hasling, CEO of a tech corporation called Amygdala, gives an interview about the company's newest product, Kimi. Kimi is a smart speaker which controversially makes use of human monitoring to improve the device's search algorithm. Amygdala plans to soon hold an initial public offering, which stands to earn Hasling a fortune.

Angela Childs is an employee of Amygdala in Seattle who works from home monitoring incoming data streams from Kimi devices and making corrections to the software. She suffers from anxiety and agoraphobia because of a previous assault, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her primary human contact is with her romantic partner Terry, her neighbour from across the street, whom she meets for sex in her apartment. One day while working, Angela receives a recording that appears to capture a violent sexual assault by a man named Brad. With the help of her coworker Darius, she accesses the information of the account holder, a woman named Samantha. Angela uncovers more of Samantha's recording, including one that sounds like her murder. It is revealed that 'Brad' is, in fact, Bradley Hasling himself and that Samantha was his mistress. Bradley had ordered the murder from a hitman named Rivas. Angela transfers the recordings to a flash drive.

She reports the incident to her superior, who refers her to Natalie Chowdhury, an executive at Amygdala. Angela attempts to reach Chowdhury over the phone but is eventually convinced to come to her office in person, with the promise that the FBI will be informed about the case. At the office, Angela is disturbed when Chowdhury seems reticent to contact the authorities and refers to her prior mental health leave. While waiting for the FBI to be contacted, she receives word from Darius that someone has deleted Samantha's voice recordings from the Amygdala servers, and shortly after sees two unknown men enter the office. She flees and travels on foot towards the nearby FBI field office while being tracked by Rivas and his accomplices through her cell phone.

The men catch up with Angela and attempt to force her into a van, but a group of nearby protestors prevents her from being abducted. However, one of Rivas's men, a hacker named Yuri, can deduce where she is headed from her search history. Angela is drugged and taken back to her apartment by her kidnappers, who plan to stage a home invasion to cover up her murder. On their way inside, they are interrupted by Kevin, a neighbour who also spends all of his time inside and became concerned after seeing Angela leave the house. Kevin is stabbed, distracting the assailants, but Rivas is already waiting inside her apartment. He confiscates the flash drive and deletes the recordings from Angela's laptop, but she uses her Kimi device to again distract Rivas and his men, escaping to a higher floor. She cobbles together a weapon using a nail gun left by a construction project in the apartment above her, using it to kill the intruders. Terry, whom she had planned to meet up with, arrives just as she is calling 9-1-1.

An epilogue shows that Bradley Hasling has been arrested for Samantha's murder. Angela, sporting a new hairstyle, gets breakfast with Terry outside of her apartment.