Hackers (DVD)

.../> OVERALL:
===
Hackers is a film I’d actually forgotten about for a while. I first saw it on video not long after it first came out, and hadn’t seen it since until I was browsing on play.com and spotted it in a bargain section, and duly bought the DVD. It’s a very funny and entertaining movie, with slick direction, good writing, an excellent cast, and a phenomenal soundtrack. It’s actually one of the most well-thought-out and well-designed ...
...I used here

http://www.imdb.com

And Hackers is available from play.com for the princely sum of £9.99, or as part of a “3 for £20" offer

http://www.play.com

No computers were harmed in the writing of this op.....
  ... more

Remember when computers were cool? When they were spanky new exciting pieces of technology that promised to make the world a better place, rather than the over-complicated frustrating pieces of 5h1t that we’re used to today? Remember when films actually used to be COOL? Remember when Dundee United actually won a trophy?

Sorry, that last one just slipped out of my subconscious, I do apologise.....

Remember when a 486 was top of the line? Remember the days before 56kbps modems? Remember mobile phones the size of bricks? Remember that this was only 7 years ago?

Remember HACKERS?

The Plot:
===
Dade Murphy (Jonny Lee Miller) is a child genius. At the age of 11 he hacked into and disabled over a thousand computers, and got caught. His punishment is to be kept away from computers of any form, even a touch-tone telephone, until his 18th birthday. Fast forward a few years to said 18th birthday, and we see Dade starting a new life in New York with his mother. At his new school he meets up with a squad of computer hackers, and the old habits kick in. Unfortunately for Dade and his chums, while it’s fun and games for a while, they’re being set up for a big, big fall. Corrupt computer programmer Eugene “The Plague” Belford (Fisher Stevens) is syphoning money off from his oil-company employers, and needs someone to take the blame to cover his tracks. Using a hack into the company’s supercomputer by one of Dade’s mates as an excuse, he creates a virus that will create a global ecologocal disaster, and blames the hackers. Cue lots of techno-jargon, dance music, flashy visuals and just plain downright cool behaviour as Dade et al fight to hack into the supercomputer again to clear their names.

The film is a fast-paced, almost breathlessly so, adventure which is a cut above the usual teen movie fare served up in the mid 90s (and since then, too). It features the usual requisites of action, romance, technical wizardry (in the shape of “inside-the computer” visuals, a bit like Tron), but never gets mushy, preachy or sentimental (well, not too much anyway). And it still holds up as a good example of the genre even now, 7-8 years later.

Cast And Characters:
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One of the reasons this film works so well is that it is phenomenally well-cast. Jonny Lee Miller shows his superb range of accents (continuing on from his flawless Edinburgh accent in “Trainspotting”) as well as his considerable acting talent in the lead role. Angelina Jolie in her first really big movie role is outstanding as Dade’s nemesis/rival/colleague/love interest Kate “Acid Burn” Libby, and it’s fun to look back and see her with jet black hair and her trademark sultry pout. Matthew Lillard plays himself (as always) as Cereal Killer, while there is excellent support from Jesse Bradford, Renoly Santiago and Laurence Mason as the rest of the Hacker gang. And everyone’s favourite psychopathic magician, Penn Gilette, turns up in a cameo as a computer systems operator. The film belongs, however, to Fisher Stevens as The Plague. He portrays the slick and oily skateboard-loving head villain as coolness personified – he’s so laid back, he’s practically horizontal. He’s fed most of his good lines by his partner in crime Margo, played by The Sopranos’ Lorraine Bracco, and he steals every scene he’s in – particularly the one in the end where he finally gets his come-uppance.
The characters in the film are made to be totally convincing by a combination of good writing and excellent acting, and by the time the plot has unravelled to its conclusion you find yourself totally involved and genuinely willing the good guys to win.

The film was directed with style by Iain Softley, the man also responsible for The Beatles biopic Backbeat, and Kevin Spacey’s recent sci-fi(ish) offering K-PAX. The pace is unrelenting without ever being wrong, the action set-pieces are snappy and sharply-edited, and the overall feel of the film is absolutely spot on – there is never an uncomfortable moment anywhere in the piece. He was helped by the fact that his cast obviously had a great deal of fun making the fun and had a good time with each other – well they must have done, as Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie ended up married after it was released!

Good Things:
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This film has the best soundtrack of any film ever released. EVER. Contributions from (most notably) The Prodigy and Underworld hit the exact tone of the film, and the constant fast-paced dance tracks of the soundtrack help to give the film its quick and relentless pacing. Also, the overall look of the film is superb, with the individual clothing styles of the characters reflecting their personalities so well that you almost feel you know what they’d buy in your local Debenhams. Also, one of the things that I personally thought was a neat touch was the way that everybody involved in hacking in the film was either a skateboarder or a roller-blader, showing that just because you were “into” one form of popular youth culture at the time, you weren’t ignorant of other ones. The film is full of subtle touches like this and other little nuances that only hit you after you’ve seen it a few times, but I won’t spoil it for you – it’s better if you look and find them for yourself.

Oh yeah – and Angelina gets them out. Blink and you’ll miss it though.....(thank God for frame advance, eh?)

Bad Things:
===
There are very few negatives about this movie. I suppose one would be that it is INCREDIBLY far-fetched, but then my knowledge of computer hacking could be written on the back of a very small stamp. In a very large font. Another is a fault that you actually can’t blame the film-makers for, which is that the computer technology used in the film is now massively outdated and obsolete, but this is going to happen in ANY film that uses computer technology as a mainstay of its premise. Technology is advancing so quickly in this field that a director/writer can only be expected to use what’s available at the time as his or her yardstick, and if it’s outmoded almost immediately – that’s just unlucky.

OVERALL:
===
Hackers is a film I’d actually forgotten about for a while. I first saw it on video not long after it first came out, and hadn’t seen it since until I was browsing on play.com and spotted it in a bargain section, and duly bought the DVD. It’s a very funny and entertaining movie, with slick direction, good writing, an excellent cast, and a phenomenal soundtrack. It’s actually one of the most well-thought-out and well-designed films I have ever seen, and as such, I would recommend it to anyone out there who likes good movies.

--------------
Thanks to the Internet Movie Database for some of the info I used here

http://www.imdb.com

And Hackers is available from play.com for the princely sum of £9.99, or as part of a “3 for £20" offer

http://www.play.com

No computers were harmed in the writing of this op.....
 

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