Review of Hackers (1995) by Justin F — 27 Mar 2011

This film is a shocker and like a manky pint of milk it hasnt aged well either.

Dade (Miller) is an 11 year old whizz kid who is arrested for writing a computer virus that takes down the US stock exchange, 700 odd other super computers and the fruit machine in his local kebab shop. Dade\Dude\Dudd is banned from using a computer until he is 18 and around this point he moves to New York because his mum (its a fashionably single parent family) has work in the city. This is ok though he has his pc back but has lost none of his skills. At his new school he bumps into Kate (Jolie) who plays a prank on him and therein starts a love hate realtionship. Having cracked the schools network he enrols himself in the same English class as Kate (fledgling stalker tendencies displayed here) he soon realises that Kate and her gang of friends are all computer hackers. This should have been obvious as every hacker in the film is easily indentifiable by the fact that they either skate or board everywhere (just like real life I guess). One of the hackers desperate for acceptance breaks into a oil companys computer and steal files that could potentially uncover a mass fraud by the firms ex uber hacker security officer (the not so frightenly named Eugene) who also travels everywhere by skateboard. Add to this the obligatory inept secret service who raid the hackers houses in a completely over the top way that wouldnt look out of place in a storm on Hannibal Lecters flat. It all ends (thankfully) in a ridiculous mass hack-off in some public telephone boxes with said bad guy Eugene screaming insanely at the computer screen as he repels the hackers attacks.

I dont dislike Miller (esp in Trainspotting & Love Honour & Obey) but he is about as convincing a geek as Mike Tyson. Jolie on the other hand ive never had a lot of time for and she manages to put on her best "slap-me" face (and worst make up) throughout though judging by the absurd size of her lips I suspect that a number of people have beaten me to it? In fact the whole hacker crew is totally annoying and I ended up willing them to fail (bet you can guess if they did or not?).

All of the hacking sequences are just laughable and totally unrealistic with the tecchie dialogue throughout ridiculous (and im a self confessed geek) including conversations about PCI buses (not to be mistaken with the one that goes from Lewisham to Peckham) and RISC arcitecture being the future (yawn). And then there is Eugene (Stevens) who is one of the most unconvincing bad guys in the history of cinema and is like a very poor mans Gary Oldman. Think of Oldmans performance in Leon only a billion times less menacing (on a skateboard) and you will get some kind of idea. His female sidekick (and supposed totty) is laughably bad with all of the personailty of a clothes line.

On the plus side the film does look good and the effects (howver stupid) hold up well today. The soundtrack is also very good though there is so much of it that dominates the film I couldnt but help think that the film was written around the songs at times. Oh I almost forgot, Jolie shows you a glimpse of her breasts (one for the teenagers out there) though I can help thinking that they have been "enhanced" since so even in this scene I felt a little shortchanged.