The spectacular rise and precipitous fall of Internet delivery service Kozmo.com is chronicled in Wonsuk Chin's documentary, which covers much the same material as Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim did in STARTUP.COM (2001). The most immediately apparent difference is that GovWorks.com, the company whose travails drive STARTUP.COM, never really got off the ground. Kozmo.com developed a high profile and a loyal following among harried young professionals in several cities, notably the company's debut market, New York City. The brainchild of two young Goldman Sachs employees, Joseph Park and Yong Kang, Kozmo was built on the notion that overworked young professionals want instant gratification but lack the free time to get the stuff they want themselves. Kozmo promised to secure video games, groceries, movies, liquor — whatever consumer goods its customers wanted — and deliver them within an hour. The story begins in 1996, when Park tries to buy a book from Amazon.com and is frustrated that he can't have it delivered that same day, and ends in 2001, when Kozmo.com ceased operations. The film was shot in 1999 and 2000, as Kozmo expands from ten employees to 4000, becomes the darling of the business media, raises hundreds of millions of dollars in investment capital, prepares for its IPO, then crashes and burns after the stock market contracts in April 2000. Kozmo's go-getting business development staff engineers strategic deals with mega e-tailer Amazon.com and coffee lifestyle purveyor Starbucks, while Park — who tends to shoot his mouth off in front of the press — gets the company embroiled in an ugly dust-up with e-marketing technology giant DoubleClick. The boyish, perpetually enthusiastic Park, public face of Kozmo, is also the film's dramatic focus, though director Chin never gets far behind the youthful CEO's smiling facade. In fact, we learn more about Park's background when Chin films Park talking to another video crew (he reveals that he emigrated from Korea to the U.S. at age three with his family, and got an early lesson in entrepreneurship from their dry-cleaning business) than at any other time. Nevertheless, the film delivers what it promises: A look at the "wild ride" that ensues when brash young men set out to conquer the online world with laptops, cell phones and sketchy business plans. --Maitland McDonagh
