ENGROSSING STORY DOCUMENTS VENTURE INTO FAILURE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Yes, they are human.

The most exhilarating thing about Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim's fly-on-the-wall documentary ``Startup.com'' is the way that it forces a viewer to empathize with two young men struggling to make their Internet business work. If, like mine, your unexamined prejudice caused you to write off such people as geeky greedheads, this amazingly timely film is certain to rock you with what should have been obvious: that sweat, tears and, yes, a great deal of soul-searching was part and parcel of the dot-com explosion - and an even bigger component of its inevitable implosion.

The filmmakers were triply fortunate with the subjects they chose. To begin with, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman - the entrepreneurs behind govWorks.com, a site dedicated to connecting individuals and their local government agencies - were high-school friends, which adds extra layers of poignancy to their ever-growing business conflicts.

Secondly, young filmmaker Noujaim was Isaza Tuzman's Harvard classmate, and that bond of trust translated into her and Hegedus (the veteran maker, with her husband and ``Startup.com'' producer D.A. Pennebaker, of such acclaimed docs as ``The War Room'') enjoying amazingly intimate access to the govWorks team's feelings and tribulations.

Last but hardly least, timing played a vital role in the story's unfolding drama. We start as Isaza Tuzman quits his safe investment firm job to run the business end of Herman's brainstorm approximately one year before the dot-com meltdown - which is approximately how long it takes them to get all of their capitalization and technical ducks in a row. The sense of impending doom an audience brings to observing the punishingly hard work and harder choices the friends and their associates invest in the endeavor provides a delicious, if not altogether benevolent, sense of fateful suspense.

The voyeuristic tingle is enhanced by the behavior of the two main participants. Isaza Tuzman is a marvelously charismatic salesman, brimming with confidence and real financial know-how, who is nonetheless fighting a losing battle with an assignment that's too big for him to handle. Ruthless in a business logic way, neglectful of the women in his life (one complaining girlfriend, a television journalist, is particularly, hilariously observant), not above telling the occasional strategic lie, Isaza Tuzman nevertheless comes off as a fundamentally decent, responsible guy. And you've got to love somebody who boldly juggles tens of millions of dollars by day, then desperately meditates and calls his mom for moral support at night.

Herman, the tech/creative head of the operation, suffers more overt self- doubts. Intriguingly, the filmmakers only illuminate certain aspects of his personal life, adding some welcome mystery to a guy prone to wear his emotions on his sleeve. His parents possess a certain, New Agey disdain for high-stakes workaholism, yet we never learn where their own obvious wealth came from. And while he's a devoted weekend dad to his little, mixed-race daughter, we're told nothing about Herman's relationship with the girl's mother.

It's fascinating to watch these two very different personalities react to an endless variety of absurd and anxious situations as their operation struggles to fruition, then steadily withers. The predestined falling out between them is as engrossing as it is heartbreaking, made more so by the fact that, regardless of how ugly things get, the young men never entirely lose sight of the emotional bond between them.

Shot on probing, exposing digital video, ``Startup.com,'' a picture that's all about the false promise and inflated worth of a mirage economy gone wild, ultimate finds the real, eternal values in people who gave it all to grab for the virtual gold ring.

``STARTUP.COM''

(Not rated: language)

Behind the scenes: Directed by Jehane Noujaim and Chris Hegedus. Produced by D.A. Pennebaker. Released by Artisan Entertainment.

Running time: One hour, 43 minutes.

Playing: Nuart, West L.A.

Our rating: Four stars