Pi

Name: Pi
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama, Thriller
Released: July 10, 1998
Duration: 84 min
Rating: 72
Cast: Mark Margolis, Sean Gullette

1998

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Generally favorable reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 119 Ratings

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7.5

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7.5	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 119 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Live Film & Mediaworks Inc. | Release Date: July 10, 1998 | R

Starring: Mark Margolis, Sean Gullette

Summary: Max Cohen, a mathematician and computer genius, finds himself pursued by Wall Street traders and a Hasidic cabal in this award-winning film.

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Drama, Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 84 min

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Critic Reviews

Kevin Thomas

It is a brilliant intellectual adventure that fans of bold independent filmmaking will want to experience, even though the ending is something of a letdown. Read full review

Joshua Klein

Aronofsky's ability to capture the rush and confusion of racing down a timeline toward infinity, only to suddenly slam into a dead end, makes for impressive and occasionally disturbing stuff. Read full review

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

Whatever its faults -- and it has more than a few -- it is unquestionably different. It at least takes a stab at interpolating cerebral ideas into the format of a thriller. Read full review

David Sterritt

This intellectual allegory would carry more punch if it didn't slip into melodrama so often, but it marks Aronofsky as an exceptionally promising new filmmaker. Read full review

Liam Lacey

Audacious and bursting with ideas, the paranoid little sci-fi independent film Pi marks an auspicious debut for New York writer Darren Aronofsky. Read full review

Dennis Harvey

The film's imaginative, diverse images create a mind's-eye urban claustrophobia; such intensity may exhaust over 85 minutes' course, but it's never less than impressive. Read full review

Bill Boisvert

With this odd mixture of elements the film's tone is gloomy, portentous, and hysterical, yet at the same time strangely earnest and square, as if David Lynch had tried to somehow make a movie version of Scientific American. Read full review

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User Reviews

DanielC.

Jul 11, 2006

Confusing Plot? Maybe, but repeat viewings are very enjoyable. The sound effects and the drum & bass soundtrack are completely awesome. The filming was so very well done. Utterly unique. We see the simplicity of the circle and the maddening complexity of Pi - 3.141 off in to infinity.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

Garsupial

Feb 2, 2023

It is a movie, one of those that come to you on its first viewing. If you are a fan of Darren Aronofsky's cinema, you will have a pleasant feeling when you see it. It is a movie for a certain audience, which is looking for another type of cinema.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

DylanB.

Feb 8, 2006

This a most entertaining and dynamic film, beautifully use of chairoscuro lighting in the shots with a plot which commands ones interest throughout! Though I find in places that it is poorly researched and contains minor flaws in factuality, causality and continuity.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

AmanA.

Mar 15, 2007

Interesting and thought provoking movie... slightly disturbing.. but a fun watch.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

PatrickSousa

Mar 27, 2016

This movie is certainly one of the most intense movies ever. It deserves to be watched a hundred times not just for a better comprehension, but for enjoy the art

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

ClariseSamuels

Jun 22, 2013

The 15th anniversary edition of Pi is being released, and as an admirer of the film, Black Swan, I finally availed myself of the opportunity to see a movie that has to be termed Early Aronofsky. Filmed in black and white, it is the confusing and excessive story of a mathematician who hasThe 15th anniversary edition of Pi is being released, and as an admirer of the film, Black Swan, I finally availed myself of the opportunity to see a movie that has to be termed Early Aronofsky. Filmed in black and white, it is the confusing and excessive story of a mathematician who has stumbled upon a data stream of 216 numbers that is a secret code coveted by both greedy Wall Street moguls and religious Hasids. In an eerie and perhaps brilliant precognition of the kind of vice and avarice that would overwhelm Wall Street ten years later, the financial fiends believe the number will give them control of the stock market. The Hasidim believe the number is the pattern they have been searching for in the Torah, which will give them the true name of God and somehow restore the Temple and the ancient glory of Judaism. The mechanism for how this is supposed to work is unclear, but Max Cohen, the mathematician played by Sean Gullette, is being followed and harassed by all parties because of his intellect and his innate ability to decipher this code.

As a child, Max's brain was affected by an incident where he almost blinded himself by staring into the sun, and the trauma turned him into a mathematical and computer genius. Aronofsky's 1998 vision of a computer genius was already outdated as we see Max sitting in an apartment with an enormous home-built computer that takes up the entire apartment. At that time, personal computers with their small CPU chips were not only in widespread use, they were much more powerful than any home-built computer could ever hope to be. The first programmable computer, called ENIAC, which was built in the 1940's, filled an entire room, weighed thirty tons, and contained 18,000 vacuum tubes--and ENIAC was much less powerful than a typical personal computer. So a computer genius in 1998 would have been very happy to have an IBM PC sitting on his desk in his small apartment. It would have been all he needed.

The Kabbalah behind the story is also a little weak. The 216-letter name of God is one of several that are considered to be the true name, the most famous one being the four Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton--yod, hey, vav, hey, or YHVH in English, and rendered erroneously as “Jehovah” by Christians. The name is not supposed to be spoken; thus, the original, ancient pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton has been lost and no one knows how to say it. The 216-letter name referred to in the film is actually the 72 names of God, all of them consisting of three letters (therefore adding up to 216), and all of them well documented and well known to the Hasidim.

The film is a psychological thriller with nerve-wracking music as Max races to find this 216-number data string. It causes him migraine headaches, paranoia, over-the-top agitation and distress, and too many times Max is screaming, passing out in his apartment, and waking up with a nosebleed. When he leaves his apartment, he is often being chased by the people who want the number, and the camera work is so dizzying that the viewer ends up getting vertigo. The denouement is not very satisfying--some intrigue is built up in the plot device of a numerical pattern that could control the stock market or restore the Jews to a messianic age, but in the end, the tortured Max drills a hole in his brain, which should have killed him, but fiction being what it is, instead just takes away the mathematical talent that makes him a hunted man. After performing this operation in his bathroom, Max can live a normal life.

The film is historically of interest because it is suggestive of the later themes that Aronofsky will treat with greater success and detail in subsequent movies.… Expand

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

Spangle

Dec 6, 2013

It felt more like a random assortment of shots more so than a film. I get that it was extremely low budget, but maybe not releasing this one as a feature film would've been a better idea because I think there's more grains in this video than there are grains of sand on the beach. Only affectIt felt more like a random assortment of shots more so than a film. I get that it was extremely low budget, but maybe not releasing this one as a feature film would've been a better idea because I think there's more grains in this video than there are grains of sand on the beach. Only affect I enjoyed was the black and white. I felt that it added to the thrill/suspense intended, but otherwise, despite Max's growing insanity, it does not really provide any thrills that I was hoping for. Ultimately, it just left me confused.… Expand

0 of 6 users found this helpful06

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33	#33 Best Movie of 1998
40	#40 Most Discussed Movie of 1998
47	#47 Most Shared Movie of 1998