Hackers
by Iain Softley
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Angelina Jolie, Jesse Bradford, Jonny Lee Miller, Laurence Mason, Matthew LillardDirector: Iain Softley
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Cinematographer: Andrzej Sekula
Producer: Iain Softley
Producer: Janet Graham
Producer: Michael Peyser
Producer: Ralph Winter
Producer: Selwyn Roberts
Writer: Rafael Moreu
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-08-25
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Hackers
Movie Review: "Mess with the best, die like the rest."
Summary: 5 Stars
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 sixes 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.
Summary of Hackers
"Hackers" chronicles a group of teenage computer wizards whose practical jokes land them in a dangerous industrial-espionage plot.System Requirements:Widescreen format 16x9-enhanced Languages: English (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround) French (Dolby Stereo surround) Subtitles: English French and Spanish Eight-page trivia booklet theatrical trailer Included Trivia Booklet Interactive Menus Video Format: Widescreen (no AR specified) Enhanced for 16x9 TVs English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround French: Dolby Digital Surround Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?COMEDY Rating:?PG-13 UPC:?027616716927 Manufacturer No:?907169As a depiction of the computer-hacker underground, this movie is bogus to the bone. As a thriller, it's cartoonish and conventional. The premise (computer-happy kids hack into the wrong system, and the Forces of Repression come after them) is recycled from John Badham's 1983 WarGames. And the corporate-creep bad guy, played by Fisher Stevens, steeples his fingers and growls mossy villainous clich?s. ("By the time they realize the truth, we'll be long gone with all the money.") For all its postmodern trappings the movie is working with sub-prehistoric storytelling tools. But it does succeed on one level, as a movie about adolescent bonding and alienation. The director, Iain Softley, helmed the Beatles-in-Hamburg biopic Backbeat, and he seems to have an instinct for the emotions that pull kids together around common interests and the insecurities that drive them apart. The familiar crises of loyalty and betrayal have an ache of real loneliness. It doesn't hurt that the two stars, Jonny Lee Miller (Sick Boy Williamson in Trainspotting) and Angelina Jolie (Gia), are just about equally gorgeous and charismatic; their longing glances steam up the screen. --David Chute
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