CAST: Johnny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Matthew Lillard, Jesse Bradford, Angela Watson, Fisher Stevens, Lorraine Bracco, Wendell Pierce, Marc Anthony, Renoly Santiago
Directed By: Iain Softley
Written By: Rafael Moreu
Cinematography By: Andrzej Sekula
Editor: Chris Blunden & Martin WalshMore noted for stars Johnny Lee Miller’s Romance and quickie marriage afterwards then anything else. But the movie is a good time capsule of styles and computer technology of the early 90’s since computer technology is always updating so fast them marveling at software that by now is epically slow seem like a ancient artifact.
The film is a totally unbelievable cyber thriller with too old actors playing teenagers. It also has Fisher Stevens Hamming it up as the films villain. Who like most villains is more brains then brawn. The only thing this movie opens your eyes to is how easily technology can take over our lives and be troublesome. This film tries to make hackers look like rockstars. The film isn’t bad it’s entertaining as long as you are not looking for too much in it.
Even for it’s time period the film looks like it was filmed cheaply great for a indie but bad for a studio film.
There is really no reason for Lorraine Bracco to be in this film. She serves no purpose other then for the villain to have a accomplice to explain his evil plan to sort of a audience surrogate. The writers still could hae found a better way to include the audience. Maybe at the time she added star power to the film, being that she is a academy and Emmy award nominee.
It’s the story of Jabe who was a 11 year old hacker who took down a business and the feds arrested him starting out a new life in New York five years later he is not allowed anywhere near a computer. He is initially a outcast but finds friends in a group of hackers who don’t know his past a wannabe member of the crew steals a file that a master hacker was using to ransom the government saying it would sink a oil tanker. The master hacker who is a consultant for the FBI wants the file back and blackmails jabe to help him get it back. While placing all the evidence on the wannabe.
What will happen watch and you will see. This is a perfect film to watch when nothing else is on or to put on while you do other things just to look up once in awhile to see where it’s at. Angelina Jolie was already setting herself apart frmo the cast with her amazing beauty here you really notice her eyes. That you can tell she was a star in the making.
There is nothing wrong with making smart people or nerds cool but this film makes hackers and hacking cool as a form of teenage rebellion though it has worldwide consequences and the finale is ridiculous showing hackers as a community. Though in life they seem more antagonistic and competitive with each other.
The film definitely doesn’t age well and feels more like a fad film. Cool for when it came out but years later you look at it and laugh. You can’t believe you once thought this was cool though when it hit theatres it still felt aged or like the film was talking down to the audience.
I have unfortunately seen this film way too many times as it was in constant rotation at my job when I worked at Tower Video. We were a young staff and could only play PG-13 and under movies and who ever was on register picked the films to play and this was one of the go to films if you really couldn’t think of anything good to play. Sometimes we got to play Rated R films in the evenings. Other titles that were on constant rotation were BLUE STREAK, BLACK KNIGHT, EMPIRE RECORDS, WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN And MALCOLM X. plus the video collections of Michael Jackson, The Cure, Madonna. I used to try and expose the customers and staff to undiscovered gems via screening the film throughout the store, but instead they liked movies like this.
It is fun to see a movie made just when the internet was coming into play. I say check it out if you can’t find anything else.
GRADE: D+
