Hackers (1995)

	Directed by: Iain Softley	COUNTRY USA GENRE Crime/Thriller NORWEGIAN TITLE Hackers RUNNING TIME 105 minutes
	Produced by: Michael Peyser Ralph Winter
	Written by: Rafael Moreu

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Dade Murphy aka Zero Cool/Crash Override	Jonny Lee Miller
Kate Libby aka Acid Burn	Angelina Jolie	½
Joey Pardella	Jesse Bradford
Emmanuel Goldsteini aka Cereal Killer	Matthew Lillard	½
Paul Cook aka Lord Nikon	Laurence Mason
Ramón Sánchez aka The Phantom Phreak	Renoly Santiago	½
Eugene Belford aka The Plague	Fisher Stevens	½
Secret Service Agent Richard "Dick" Gill	Wendell Pierce	½
Lauren Murphy	Alberta Watson	-
Margo	Lorraine Bracco

Review

A hacker prodigy (Jonny Lee Miller) finds his peers among a collective of high school hackers, who soon get tangled up in a hefty embezzlement scheme led by the former hacker Eugene "The Plague" Belford (Fisher Stevens). This flashy film may have seemed groundbreaking back in 1995, when the general public arguably didn't understand much about the world it supposedly portrays – but today, it looks and plays like the hackneyed fare it actually is. Director Iain Softley has far more novel ideas for visualising how computers and hacking work than for depicting high school life or sketching heroes and villains. The bombastic plot ironically has the counterproductive effect of making hacking seem less intriguing, less sophisticated, and less relevant than it actually was. Though Hackers touches on truths, the constant overembellishing of everything from antagonists and officials to the subculture itself lets the film down. What holds up best is the eclectic soundtrack of cutting-edge mid-1990s electronic music, and, ultimately, the romance between Miller and a young Angelina Jolie – which, incidentally, also played out in real life.