Hackers (1995)

Today on Movie Russian Roulette, Alex watches The Net, if it was run through eight different filters of the kind of RADICAL that so thoroughly infected the mid-90s. Let's pretend that high schoolers can topple massive conspiracies because they know how to use computers. That's a thing, right?

You wouldn't get it, gramps. Now let's do some sweet kickflips on our skateboards

Overview: Dade Murphy, AKA "Zero Cool", is a young genius who, when he was around 12, crashed over 5,000 computers and, by court order, was forbidden to use a computer or touch-tone phone until he turns 18. Well, he's turned 18, and he's ready to tear things up again.

That's the face of smoldering rage.

Dade, now a transfer student, befriends a few other hackers and radical hijinks ensue before they naturally become embroiled in a plot to defraud people of millions of dollars. With the cops and the Secret Service on their tail, they have to clear their names and save the day from the nefarious plot of evil hacker The Plague, played by the guy who played a racist caricature in Short Circuit.

Here looking much more respectable.

Notable moments/quotes: Dade's Mom: "Dade? What are you doing, honey?"
Zero Coolio: "Mom, I'm taking over a TV network."
After a beat, she answers: "Finish up, hon, and get to sleep. And happy birthday."

Dade, after rival hacker Acid Burn out-hacks him in a sequence that involves footage of fencing duels and gunfights because they knew they couldn't make real hacking look interesting: "Shit on me."

Friendly hacker Cereal Killer: "1984? That's a typo, man. Orwell's here now. He's living large."

Preach on, Lillard. Preach on.

Immediately after this, CK breaks out a series of books that apparently contain every secret access to the FBI, CIA, and NSA's files just as casually as pulling out some potato chips.

Unimportant character, to another unimportant character: "Where are your brains? In your ass?"

The Plague, arriving in style to his employers' security center: "Never fear. I is here."

Yes, he is riding a skateboard.

Later, at a house party, Dade and co. inspect hot babe Kate's laptop while Kate herself is mid-fuck with some guy. When she finds the four of them in her bedroom, not only is she not mad, but she blows off the bang and strolls over to talk hacker shop.

After Dade discovers Kate is Acid Burn, the two engage in a hacker competition that randomly speeds them between the tops of buildings, the side of radio towers, and a corner in Chinatown, doing things via hacking way too quickly to be believable.

The Plague that is Edge: "We are samurai, the keyboard cowboys."

At the movie's climax, our antiheroic hackers have stolen the files to clear their names, when the Secret Service busts in. Dade is able to casually fling the disk with the data into a trashcan, somehow without anyone noticing. Cereal Killer later grabs it and saves the day.

seems legit

Plaguelord: "Look, there is no right & wrong. Only fun & boring."

My thoughts: I wasn't old enough to truly experience the horror that was the early 90s, so pieces of entertainment so mired in the era like this one just make me shake my head and marvel how American culture survived such an onslaught. Only the saving grace of Nicolas Cage's only possible successor, the unstoppable Matthew Lillard, saves this movie for me. Without his presence, I'm pretty confident this one would have made me march down to the liquor store this morning for a late breakfast of whiskey and regret.

I mean, I almost did that anyway

Anyway, this movie about hackers has one major problem: real hacking isn't that interesting to watch. So, we get all the usual crap that Hollywood pulls with people that can hack becoming modern-day wizards who can reshape reality as the script requires due to "I dunno, lol, computers and stuff." This problem has only gotten worse, as scriptwriters with latent Luddite leanings use it to set up a "Gee, maybe computers run too much of our lives, never mind the improvements to quality of life it brings" angle that they can only justify by essentially giving every hacker superpowers. I'm not a hacker myself, but I know enough about computers to know that there's no way in hell kids could pull off this level of wacky hijinks. Not without landing in jail many, many more times than they do.

Hackers also features a pretty half-assed romance subplot between Dade and Kate. They start off the movie absolutely hating each other, but after each has an awkward wet dream about the other (which the movie shows because of course it does) they just both realize "Eh, maybe make love not war?" It comes off very forced and rushed, which is a shame because these two spend a good bit of the movie together and we could have seen them grow together as they overcome differences and blah blah blah.

I guess that wasn't RADICAL enough.

There's plenty more I could touch on, such as the illogic of having the Secret Service helping a private company recover data, the massive deus ex machina the ending pulls, and the lack of character for... well, everyone not played by Matthew Lillard, but this is one film I just want to forget as soon as possible. Just like most things from the 90s. If you have nostalgia goggles tuned to maximum strength, this one might entertain, but mostly you come for the eyerolls and Matthew Lillard.

I give movie a Nic Cage Kicks a Man When He's Down out of five. Face the books the pat the uh... rons? My writing powers are clearly in high gear today.