HACKERS

US, 1995, 105 minutes, Colour.
Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Jessie Bradford, Matthew Lillard, Fisher Stevens, Lorraine Bracco, Wendell Pierce.
Directed by Iain Softley.

Hackers is a story, obviously, about teenage hackers, their entering into the computer networks of the business and government world as well as computer fraud. British Jonny Lee Miller is the star hacker, an expert from the time that he was ten and was forbidden by a judge to go near a computer until age eighteen. At age eighteen, moving to New York with his mother (Alberta Watson), he finds himself caught up in rivalry of the other New York hackers. He meets the rebellious Kate (Angelina Jolie), as well as the oddball Cereal Killer (Matthew Lillard, in a kind of performance that he was to repeat in many films including She's All That as well as Scooby Doo). Fisher Stevens is the evil genius engineering the computer fraud for his boss, played by Lorraine Bracco.

The film is of interest mainly for those interested in computers, the Internet, hacking and its skills and consequences. Iain Softley directed the interesting film about the fifth Beatle, Backbeat, as well as an adaptation of Henry James' Wings of the Dove.

1. Audience interest in the Internet, the information highway, hacking and its skills and consequences?

2. The youth focus of the film, the cast, their rivalries, skills and competitiveness, collaboration?

3. The credibility of the plot, the skills of the hackers, their abilities to work with one another, the discovery of the computer fraud, the international links in order to confront it, their winning out?

4. The background of New York City, big business, the companies, the police precincts, homes and apartments, clubs?

5. The prologue and Dade and his skills at such a young age, his being arrested, the court case, the judge forbidding him to go near computers? His relationship with his mother?

6. The move to New York City, Dade and his mother, Dade and his going back to the computers, his skills, connections?

7. Kate and her antagonism towards Dade, her attitudes, the rivalry?

8. The introduction to the group, Cereal Killer and the others, their types, personalities? Their rivalries? Joey as the youngest, his hacking into the company, the banks, his being detected, arrested, going to jail?

9. The police, the exasperation, trying to track down the hackers, arresting Joey, the interrogations? Having tabs on the other members of the group?

10. Eugene and his ingenuity, using the cover of big business for computer fraud, his boss and her not wanting to know, the board meetings? The plot, the computer alteration of the ships and their capsizing, the insurance, the genius behind the programming and execution of these programs?

11. The police and Dade, the approach to him to uncover the fraud, their threats?

12. The group working together, socially, going to the clubs, getting the contacts, the international links and the phone-ups? The types of computer hackers from all over the world?

13. The use of the digital effects for the computers, the information highway, the technology and the machines, the programs, the games, the fraud? All this communicated visually? The race against time, the ingenuity of the various members, of Kate, of Cereal, of Dade, ultimately winning?

14. Eugene and his escape, his being arrested on the plane?

15. The romantic background to the story, the pool and Dade getting wet, the final scene on the rooftop in the pool, with Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller at this stage of their lives actually marrying in real life for a short time?