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Watch three members of the ICANN community get assassinated

Kevin Murphy, June 22, 2020, 21:01:41 (UTC), Gossip

Three members of the ICANN community got killed by an assassin in a 2012 movie, now available on Amazon Prime, I inexplicably had never heard about until today.

The film’s called Rogue Hunter, and it’s produced and directed by prominent community member Jonathan Zuck, who’s been involved in ICANN representing intellectual property interests for the last 15 years.

It’s about… 55 minutes long.

It’s about… I dunno. A foxy female assassin or something? Maybe. The audio during the exposition scenes was pretty ropey. My feeling was that it’s drawing a lot from The Bourne Identity.

Zuck himself, alongside Steve DelBianco and Andrew Mack, both former chairs of the ICANN Business Constituency, all have cameos in which they get killed.

Here’s the trailer for the film, featuring DelBianco getting offed near the Taj Mahal (presumably shortly after the 2008 ICANN 31 meeting in New Delhi).

But is it any good?

No. The movie is fucking terrible.

But it’s firmly in the “So Bad It’s Good” zone.

And I laughed my balls off.

It’s not quite a classic of the genre — it’s no The Room — because it seems pretty clear that Zuck and his colleagues knew they were making a terrible film. There’s deliberate humor in the script and the direction.

The film was released in 2012, and somehow got on to Amazon Prime two years ago, where it has one one-star review:

Poor camera work, poor lighting, poor story line, poor acting just really all round dreadful.

I don’t think that reviewer really “got” what the makers were going for. Maybe, if you choose to watch the movie and review it, you could help redress the balance.

I should point out that there’s a bit of nudity and a somewhat explicit sex scene in the film, so you probably shouldn’t watch it with your boss or your kids watching over your shoulder.

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Comments (4)

  1. John Berryhill says:

    I wonder if they would share with us what was the cost of the commercial filming license at the Taj Mahal. I understand it has gone up in recent years and takes some time for them to issue, so it would be interesting to hear what Zuck went through in order to get one.

    • Kevin Murphy says:

      In 2008.

      • John Berryhill says:

        Yes. It’s gone up since then, but the process, as I understand it, is no less complicated. It’s surprising they would have gone through the effort which it takes to film there for commercial purposes.

  2. Vika Mpisane says:

    I’m happy to see Andrew Mack in there. He certainly looks the part:-)

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