Directed by Tiller Russell
Written by Tiller Russell and David Kushner, based on Kushner’s Rolling Stone article, “Dead End on Silk Road: Internet Crime Kingpin Ross Ulbricht’s Big Fall”
Starring Nick Robinson, Jason Clarke, Alexandra Shipp, Jimmi Simpson, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Will Ropp
Rated R
1 hour 52 minutes
Available for digital rental Feb. 19 and Blu-Ray/DVD Feb. 23

by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer

If I said the words “Silk Road” and mentioned the moniker “Dread Pirate Roberts” to you, what comes to mind? If the answer is “nothing,” then you fall in my camp. I struggled to remember this being a news story. As soon as it entered the public consciousness, particularly through this Gawker article, it disappeared. Maybe you were following it very closely at the time. Between 2011 and 2013, a website called Silk Road operated on the dark web, undetected by search engines, using Bitcoin as currency and a system called Tor which conceals user data. You could buy anything on Silk Road, but most specifically, drugs. Not unlike The Social Network, this was all the brainchild of a kid with a computer. This kid was Ross Ulbricht, a San Francisco entrepreneur, portrayed in the film Silk Road by rising cute Nick Robinson (Love, Simon, A Teacher). The real Ross Ulbricht is currently serving life in prison without possibility of parole. 

Silk Road opens with a sassy disclaimer, that the story is true “except what we made up or changed.” The rest of the film is a by-the-books, based-on-a-true-story procedural film, which makes sense, as director/writer Tiller Russell is a writer on the procedural series Chicago P.D. and Chicago Fire. Read the above-referenced Rolling Stone article on Ulbricht and your first impression is going to be that he seems like a total dick. A silver spoon, born into wealth, entitled and arrogant. But in the film, which is maybe where you should start first, he’s someone else entirely. Someone better. Robinson portrays him as sympathetic, almost innocent. On paper, Ross Ulbricht spews libertarian views which sound auto-generated. In the film, however, when Robinson proclaims that the War on Drugs is a “farce,” you’re like, yeah! He’s right! It’s almost as if you’re rooting for him. 

Silk Road follows two overlapping stories – Ross and the launch of Silk Road (originally called “Underground Brokers”), and disgraced DEA agent Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke, Zero Dark Thirty), who is demoted to the cybercrimes division after returning from rehab. After a drug bust in Puerto Rico went awry, Rick returns to regain the trust of both his colleagues and his family (Katie Asleton and Lexi Rabe, Tony Stark’s daughter from Avengers: Endgame). With some help from a former informant named Rayford (Darrell Britt-Gibson, Judas and the Black Messiah), Rick begins communicating with Ross without disclosing his identity. Meanwhile, Rick faces the scorn of his colleagues, many of whom know about his past, and tease him for barely knowing how to operate a computer mouse. Rick takes out his anger and resentment against his younger colleagues, ultimately, on making sure that Ross gets caught, but not before playing games with him first.

Silk Road is imminently watchable, largely thanks to Robinson, who keeps the character more sympathetic than perhaps he is in real life. Even when Rick entraps Ross into ordering “hits” on people who threaten Silk Road (none of which were ever carried out), he’s still got that “aw shucks” appeal. Scene stealer Paul Walter Hauser (I, Tonya) shows up as a supposed drug kingpin who is actually a recliner-bound drug dealer who snuggles with his pet ferret. Supporting characters largely just orbit around the two men, including Asleton as the wife and Alexandra Shipp as Ross’s girlfriend. Silk Road is like if The Social Network was stripped of everything that made it one of the best films of this century so far. It’s absent of style and unwilling to deviate from any formulas, and yet, it’s an easy, entertaining, at-home watch.