Hackers

Sometimes it's all about how cool the movie looks, right? HACKERS doesn't exactly come at you with an airtight plot and, yeah, the story's a bit preposterous. Plus, since I'm not a computer sensei, I don't know how credible or believable the hacking content really is (for example, there wasn't such a thing as a Gibson computer). But, dang it, it all looks very cool. Blame MTV with its glitz and rapid edits and sensory gluttony, all elements adapted by director Iain Softley. And me having gotten all swept up in that whole mess of flash-over-substance, I ended up really liking HACKERS back in 1995. Nowadays, I still like it. I am very shallow.In another existence probably much closer to ours, these guys in this movie are the social bottom-feeders, stepped on and bullied and ridiculed by the much cooler sets. But in HACKERS these nerds flaunt the power; they're the hippest and the coolest, a clique of renegade keyboard cowboys living on the edge, quoting Ginsberg and sneaking into your computer system, rummaging thru your cyber drawers like a viral ninja in the dark of the moon.In 1988, Seattle, eleven-year-old computer whiz Dade Murphy (Jonny Lee Miller) - a.k.a. Zero Cool - introduced a computer virus and in one day crashed 1507 systems, including the Wall Street trading systems (this nearly causing a stock market collapse). He got caught, and in court was sentenced to probation and banned from access to computers or touchtone phones until his 18th birthday. Seven years later, Dade Murphy and his mom have just moved to New York. Trying to keep it on the down-low, Dade, now going by the moniker of Crash Override, still keeps his hand in with the online shenanigans, and he promptly hooks up with an elite bunch of hackers who happen to attend his new high school. It's cool, Dade's still got his six covered - that is, until he sees, falls for, is tricked and smolderingly tantalized by teen temptress hacker Kate Libby (Jolie), whose a.k.a. is Acid Burn. Acid Burn sits at the top of the roost and it doesn't sit well with her when Dade's hacking kung-fu sizes up to be at her level. Especially when Crash Override flings his battlecry - "Mess with the best, die like the rest." - and then proceeds to publicly beat her record at a video game. So starts their slow-burn courtship, which is the best part of this movie, that thing they do being rife with games of oneupmanship and sexual tension up the yingyang, with one gazing at the other in that romantic/calculating way when the other is unawares. You've seen this gazillion times before in other movies, but when it's Angelina Jolie doing the eyeing, well, the stakes, um, elevate much more... Also, the funniest sequence in the film features Crash Override and Acid Burn's effing around (on a bet) with the life of a particular thorn-in-the-side Secret Service agent (regarded as Hacker Enemy Number One).To get the thriller portion of the film going, Joey, one of the hacker kids, a callow apprentice dreaming of being elite, hacks into an oil corporation's supercomputer and downloads its garbage file, of which contents unearth a multi-million-dollar embezzling scheme. The corporation's quirky cyber security consultant, the Plague (his real name is Eugene), with the Secret Service in tow, quickly targets Joey and his fellow hacker homies which then leads to Dade's notorious past being brought up. But when the Plague threatens to frame and imprison Dade's mom, the epic typie-typie is on - to expose the Plague's dastardliness, to prevent an ecological nightmare, and to win one for the "good hackers" of the world.How do you surmount the Dullsville that, in real life, would be overweight, pimply nerds whiling away hours and hours on computer consoles? Not so exciting in real, right? The remedy involves casting good-looking actors, introducing a pulsing rave-appropriate soundtrack, and lots of sleight-of-hand trickeration featuring cool-looking and colorful computer imagery reflecting on and crawling by the logged-on users' mugs. These brief flickers into the virtual universe are flashy and dizzying enough that even Paul Jackson Pollock might feel queasy.And, okay, just about every cast member is a walking stereotype, with the possible exception of Fisher Steven's oddball villain guy. The good news is that, for the most part, the actors' performances make these characters interesting. At the time a newbie actor, Jonny Lee Miller ( Eli Stone: The Complete First Season ) as the lead guy is charismatic enough that he grounds you into the movie. But it's Angelina Jolie, with those lips so pouty pouty, who made me sit up and go "Hey... wha - hey..." Angelina, whose sizzling heavy-lidded glances were so very come-hitherish that I almost crashed thru the television screen. Note that Matthew Lillard as Cereal Killer is also fairly awesome, and that Fisher Stevens injects enough quirk and ego into his role that he makes a hissable villain, although physically he's about as imposing as, well, as a computer nerd. That noticeable bad smell in the room is Marge Simpson-sounding Lorraine Bracco, whose turn as a crooked, not-that-sultry company executive is about as credible as a clown at your doorstep at 3 in the morning and as seductive as armpit stain. Not to mention, Bracco and Stevens simply do not mesh as a couple. I forget which movie review, but one line from it made me crack up. To paraphrase whomever that film critic was: Jonny Lee Miller, a new young English actor, comes away with a believable American accent, which is more than you can say for Lorraine Bracco.By the way, I dig Crash Override's battlecry so much that I've since adopted it for my own. But "Mess with the best, die like the rest" just doesn't carry the same momentous, Ragnarok-like overtones when applied to not quite epic contests of Jenga and Hungry Hungry Hippos. My nephews and nieces just end up looking at me weird. Ah well.

Not very high quality. Looks ran from a standard printer. Serves the purpose I wanted it for though. But if your looking for high quality look elsewhere.

While this movie is in no way an accurate portrayal of "hacking," especially during the time period it was made (1995), it is still a great movie. The director obviously decided that flashy graphical user interfaces would be a lot more exciting for movie audiences, than the standard Unix prompt environment. While the types of GUIs shown in the movie would not have been used at that time, nor for those purposes, nor *could* they have been used (a 28.8 baud modem is drooled over in this film, and trust me a 28.8 couldn't begin to even choke on the graphical interface it is supposed to be handling), it is still a fun movie to watch.What makes the movie work? Great actors, great script, great soundtrack, accurate ideas (if not technology). I will not bore people with my opinions of the actors, but I will cover the rest.The script. The premise of the movie is not only plausible, but scenarios like it have actually happened many times over (usually with the "bad guy" winning in the end by the way). Don't believe me? Search any credible online news database for keywords such as "scandal," + "corporation," + "corruption," + "fraud," + "embezzlement." You will find your examples.Soundtrack. The music in this movie is sweet. The music ranges from house trance to freaky techno cyber punk. It suits the mood and the pacing of the movie perfectly.Ideas. The ideas behind this movie are obvious. They even managed to sneak in a portion of the "Hacker's Manifesto," written by, "The Mentor." True it wasn't nearly complete, and it was slightly edited, but they did get some of it in. The basic idea behind this movie, and behind the "hacker," sub-culture is that capitalism is fine -- greedy profiteering is something else all together. Real "hackers," do not do what they do because they are anti-social (although many are) or because they have a desire to hurt anyone or to destroy anything. A real "hacker," is only interested in one thing, information. They don't care if it is the government that has the information, or a corporation, if it is something they think the world should know (or something they are just curious about) then they will go after it. The little punks launching "viruses," these days are not "hackers," they are stupid wannabes that downloaded a "133+" Virus-Warez off the internet, that allows them to basically point and click to setup a malicious computer program that will do a limited amount of functions. You will either encounter that type of amateur virus online, or a more professional job -- generally created by a programmer that is interested in one thing, money. These more sophisticated programs (I detest calling them "viruses") scan your computer looking for files named "money," or "records," or "passwords," or "secret," or "mine," or "bank," etc. They grab that information and send it back to the program author, and if it is enough information, you will find yourself the latest victim of identity theft -- along with an empty bank account. Anyway, I digress, this is the sub-culture that this movie is trying to tap into, computer experts that go by many names, including "hacker." I believe that in this, the the movie succeeds brilliantly. If you haven't seen it yet, give it a chance. Just don't watch it expecting to learn how to break into anyone's computer system. [grin]Oh, and another *very* common password that the movie misses in its list of common passwords (love, sex, secret, god) is "password." All you goofballs out there using that as your password, you are begging to be "hacked."PeaceAnd -- Hack The Planet!

Back in the 90's I was bit of a computer nerd (still am) having owned almost every computer Commodore released, this movie was fascinating to me then and having recently purchased the Blu-ray from 88 Films I was expecting it to be a bit cringey. Not at all, this is still a blast, great music, terrible clothes, awful attitudes, basic computers, modems, hacking and a brilliant cast! I watched it twice in the same week and there are few movies I do that with.

When I think back to the mid 90s, I remember what fun we all had when Windows 95 replaced Windows 3.1. All the hours of fun with plug and play that wasn't, USB that wasn't very universal and the social faux pas that was seeing your clothing clashing horribly with your monitor each time you were presented with the latest blue screen of death. Strangely Hackers, despite being made around this time and being about computers, doesn't seem to focus very heavily on any of these facts. (Then again if it had it would've been a much longer, slower and more boring film, as everyone sat around chatting while waiting for five minutes in each scene for their computers to boot up.) I think I did notice an Apple logo at some point, but I can only assume that everyone involved in the action was using a super duper version of Linux or something. There is actually a lot in this film that isn't very realistic and the main characters are generally way too cool and good looking to be computer geeks. Actually I've just realised that it's probably entirely pointless trying to make any real world sense of this film at all, a little like trying to explain the sense behind all Jason Statham's running about in Crank. Much better to sit back, enjoy the nonsense, the slight cyberpunk imagery and watch the good guys beat the bad guys. Watch, enjoy the action and silliness and be glad there's always a group of heroes out there ready to risk everything to save the day. A word of warning though; don't watch Hackers with anyone who actually knows anything about computers. He or she will spoil it for you!

Their only crime was curiosityProbably THE best film from the 90s. I've lost count of the number of times I've watched this since I got the DVD (if I don't watch it every couple of weeks there's something seriously wrong <grin>. A great cast - Jonny Lee Miller(who plays Dade perfectly), the unique 'Cereal Killer' (Matthew Lillard) and Angelina Jolie(to name but a few)Made in 1995, this is a classic with some seriously great one-liners. It's a seriously under-rated film which has a teen feel-good factor, and you don't even have to be a geek to approciate it (though it helps ;-) )

Best 90's IT based film.

Great soundtrack.Silly film.Let go of your preconceptions, watch it, it's great fun.Very much a product of the 90's. Its great fun.