If you go to see August, the Josh Hartnett vehicle/dot-bomb nostalgia trip, tomorrow night, watch the costar carefully. Adam Scott plays Joshua, a mild-mannered techie who cofounds Landshark with his blustering brother as CEO. "Joshua's not clean, either," Scott told me at last night's preview. Watch closely and here's what you'll spot:

As the Landshark crew head for their climactic meeting with old-money investor David Bowie, Joshua quietly disappears from the action. He claims the moral high ground over his blowhard CEO brother Tom, played by Hartnett: I did my part and built the thing, now it's up to you to sell it. But Joshua's real motivation, says Scott, is he's having his own meltdown. Unable to deal with the failure of the company that had made him worth over $100 million, Joshua quietly flees the office and holes up with family. In the film's first meeting scene, Joshua seems to be in charge over loose-cannon Tom. At the end, he's the one who doesn't show.

The film will appeal to at least three camps: Those for whom Hartnett can do no wrong, anyone who appreciates a "Please, God, give me another bubble before I die" bumper sticker and New Yorkers of a certain age. I can identify on two of the three counts, but still, the film felt like a naked Indiewood appeal for me to consider Hartnett a serious actor. For starters, how did this startup founder know about tight, pegged jeans; skinny, shapeless, twill-cotton sportcoats and "douchebag neck" tees three years before Williamsburg?

A steely-eyed, remorseless David Bowie gives the movie a certain cachet and this appearance by Jason Calacanis as a master booster will also have its draw. But I can't see it crossing any mainstream borders even after building bridges between psychographic camps. I'd give it the early-mover advantage, except a lot of the same territory was already covered better by Groove.