Hackers

Hackers released in 1995 starring Angelina Jolie, Johnny Lee Miller, Matthew Illard among others as a group of high school age hackers. Johnny Lee Miller plays the role of Dade who as a kid was arrested for one of the largest hacking attacks in America, and was sentenced to not be able to use a computer or touch-tone phone until he was 18. This movie then jumps forward until he is 18 and a senior in high school. He and his mother relocate to New York City, where he meets the beautiful Kate Libby, who he both falls in love with and starts a rivalry with. He also makes friends with hackers Phantom Phreak, Cereal Killer, Lord Nikon, and Joey. Joey hacks into a "Gibson" super computer and copies a "garbage folder", the folder without his knowledge contained a worm that was stealing money from a huge minerals corporation, and also a virus that could cause a potential ecological disaster. The hackers find that the guy in charge of cyber security is the actual bad guy and they unite to bring him down. But they are also in a race against time as the police and federal agents are working to take down the hackers. This film got a lot of mixed reviews, and the reviews are accurate really. I will start off with the fact that I actually love this film. The visuals of the film are beautiful, though a bit dated, and also many of the visuals of computer screens is not really representative of computers at the time, but it still looks amazing. Though when discussing visuals, this film is very much a product of the 90s, and it looks very 90s, in costumes, sets, and visuals. The characters are all interesting, and some of which are based upon real life hackers that the writer met when researching the film. The characters were all well cast and played their roles really well, with the exception of the adults in the film who all seemed very flat and generic and nothing more than background noise, where as the kids who played the hackers were all great. The film is fast paced and really doesn't slow down at all. Would I recommend this film? Yes, but I don't feel it is for everyone. The film is a bit dated, and gets a bit preachy about fighting for freedom of speech and information. I would definitely recommend checking it out though. Hackers over the years has become a cult film with a big underground fan base. To me it is still one of my favourite movies to star Angelina Jolie, she was so beautiful and talented, and fun to watch in this film, and also Matthew Illard stole the scene every time he was on screen with his over the top personality, that was also evident in his film SLC Punk. Again I am one of the people who really love this film.