STARTUP.COM -----------
Just after Jehane Noujaim quit her MTV job to take up filmmaking, her roommate Kaleil Tuzman left a job with Goldman Sachs to team up with friends in founding a dot.com. Documentarian Chris Hegedus ("The War Room") met Jehane while looking for a project on the Internet and the two teamed up to co-direct the rise of govWorks.com from ground zero. They didn't get what they had expected, but they did capture drama aplenty in "Startup.com."
As much the story of the rise and fall of a dot.com as of the unravelling of a lifelong friendship, "Startup.com" focusses on govWorks cofounders Kaleil Tuzman and Tom Herman. Friends since childhood, Kaleil is the darkly exotic, charismatic money man who convinced multiple venture capitalists to invest millions of dollars in govWorks.com while Tom is the all American kid who stayed in the background guiding development. Kaleil's ruthless, workaholic drive contrasts so sharply with Tom's laid back, trusting nature we know we're in for major conflicts. The cracks begin to show early on, when Tom's enthusiasm for the technology during an investment meeting causes Kaleil to accuse him of being unfocussed. On the flip side, Tom makes design decisions without waiting for Kaleil to return from one of his countless business trips.
The film is frequently, often unintentionally, funny. Reporting from an early meeting in the Silicon Valley, Kaleil sputters on about how their proposal was criticized for being presented in hardcopy rather than computerized presentation, for their lack of IT experience, lack of startup experience and for being 2-3 years behind the curve. 'He just doesn't get it!' Kaleil remarks on the obviously prescient investor. Later on, when their company's grown to over 50 employees, they're all trooped out to Tom's parents' Camp Interloken retreat for a mandatory morale weekend. Tom hikes them into the woods where he tells them he likes to meditate - the wind whistling through the pine needles is particularly inspirational he tells the awe-struck group as the video camera records utter silence. Occasionally, we're treated to Kaleil's girlfriend Dorita complaining about his refusal to understand that just one phone call from him can 'keep her going' for up to three weeks (another relationship hitting the skids).
Kaleil 'I refuse, reFUSE, REFUSE to lose!' Tuzman's chutzpah knows no bounds, as he invites competitors to visit their office (Atlanta's ezgov.com eventually beats them at their own game) or slips President Clinton his business card right in front of CNN's cameras. On the eve of their launch, though, govWorks' search engine is declared a dud and the company never regains its footing. Tom gets philosophical and is sacked by Kaleil, who can't believe Tom no longer trusts him when Tom begins to protect his own self interests.
"Startup.com" is conventionally filmed on video by a filmmaking team with exceptional access to their subjects. While they've captured the story of a generation who surfed the Internet wave with dreams of untold wealth, when their own subject was one of the ones who wiped out, Jehane and Hegedus seem to reel with them. The documentary has a long and dramatic build, marking time with the build up in govWork's employee base, yet suddenly, it all drops off. Tom's ejection is given weight, but the gradual disintegration of govWorks is not. The abrupt feel of the film's wrapup is also a casuality of the filmmakers' decision to concentrate on Kaleil and Tom without so much as naming almost any other employee.
Still, "Startup.com" packs more drama than most fictional films currently in release and documents a distinctive moment in America's business landscape.
B
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