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Released by: 88 Films
Released on: November 26th, 2018.
Director: Iain Softly
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Jonny Lee Miller, Jesse Bradford, Matthew Lillard
Year: 1995
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Hackers - Movie Review:
Movie review by Mark Tolch.
Back before Jonny Lee Miller left his mark in cinematic history by playing Sick Boy in the film "Trainspotting", and Angelina Jolie became famous for breaking adoption records worldwide, there was Hackers, the 1995 film by Director Iain Softley (Backbeat). At eleven years old, Dade Murphy pissed off both his parents and the government mightily when, using the handle "Zero Cool", he orchestrated a computer virus that took down thousands of systems. Too young for jail time, his parents earned a hefty fine, and young Dade was prohibited from owning a computer until his 18th birthday.
Seven years later, we find Dade on the way to the big city of New York with his mother, leaving his friends and his "Zero Cool" persona behind. On a lonely night, Dade decides to pass the evening by hacking into the automated playback system at the local TV station in order to watch The Outer Limits. Pleased with himself for combining both social engineering and an attack on the station's not-so-complex modem system, things seem to be going swimmingly until an angry warning pops up on his screen; somebody known as "Acid Burn" is not happy that Dade is hacking around on turf that doesn't belong to him. Adopting the handle of "Crash Override", Dade and Acid Burn engage in an online battle, warring with each other for control of the automated playback system. After an exchange of brilliant barbs (Mess With the Best, Die Like the Rest), the melee comes to an end when Acid Burn shuts down Dade's connection.
Dade has bigger things to focus on, however, heading into his first day at a new school, where he's duped into locking himself on the school roof by cruel prankstress Kate Libby (Jolie). Despite her unkind ways, Dade finds himself smitten with Kate, and uses his hacking skills to get placed in her English class. When this tech-savvy move draws the attention of "The Phantom Freak", another hacker, Dade is drawn into the cyber clubbing world, where he meets other like-minded individuals with cool online handles and gets to talk about things like 28 Kb baud modems and ram-doubling, and active matrix displays. In an effort to outdo one another, talk turns to pulling off the granddaddy of all hacks, the hacking of a Gibson supercomputer. Desperate to fit in with Dade, Freak, Cereal, and the others, hacker wannabe Joey pulls off the Gibson hack and copies some files that ties a skateboarding, corporate tech security madman known as "The Plague" to a virus that will wreak havoc on the planet's oceans, and The Plague wastes no time in turning the tables to frame the young hacker as the real culprit. But when he finds out that Dade is really THE Zero Cool and has the potential to expose his criminal scheme, the Plague reaches out to his contacts in government to round up the hackers and have them imprisoned.
Walking a line between amusing and outright ridiculous (and actually falling quite a few times into head-shaking territory), Hackers is really a product of its time, when hacking was in its infancy and people didn't really know any better. Looking at it 20 years later, it's hard to believe that such a film was made, with its underground clubs with rollerblading ramps, massive-screened video games, and people going off the rails talking about tech stuff. In spite of the real-life hackers who have lent credibility to the story with their tales of meetings and secret societies, the whole thing comes across as pretty laughable.
However, this doesn't make Hackers a bad film. It is, in fact, pretty entertaining for all of the reasons that make it laughable, and Softly's hyper approach to direction doesn't hurt. Dade's character is presented as seeing things in rapid-fire arrangements of television clips and computer graphics, keeping the visuals entertaining. And as hard as it must be to make a battle of text interesting to the viewer, Softly pulls it off by making the barbs, dialogue, and keyboard motions more exaggerated. It shouldn't work, but it does. The soundtrack doesn't hurt either, loaded with energetic techno and other electronic music, which keeps the film moving along at a good pace. Finally, the performances here are perfectly in synch with the film, which is to say that they range from sturdy to outlandish, but all at the right time and never seem out of place. What should be an absolute train wreck of a film is instead a pretty fun and somewhat nostalgia-filled trip back to the mid-90's.
Hackers - Blu-ray Review:
Hackers arrives on Region B Blu-ray from 88 Films framed at 2.35.1 widescreen and in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. The transfer on this disc looks like it came from the same source as the Shout! Factory release from 2015. That's not a bad thing, that transfer looked good and so does this one. Detail is pretty solid and colors look excellent. We get strong black levels and nice depth. The feature takes up 34GBs of space on the 50GB disc so it has a nice, high bit rate. There are no compression issues and the image is free of noise reduction and edge enhancement. It's also very clean, showing some film grain as it should but no noticeable print damage.
English language DTS-HD tracks are provided in 2.0 and 5.1 with optional subtitles available in English only. The 5.1 mix is pretty decent, using the surround channels more for the score and occasional effects placement than anything else, wisely leaving the dialogue up front in the mix. Everything is clean, clear and properly balanced. No problems here at all.
Carried over from the Shout! Factory disc is a three-part retrospective on the film entitled The Keyboard Cowboys (1:03:55). Take away Mark… Experts on hacking, Director Iain Softly, Fisher Stevens, Penn Jillette, and Matthew Lillard are on hand to talk about the accuracy of the depictions in the film, the costumes, the visual effects, and the staying power of Hackers. While there were definitely a few "Riiiiiight" moments when discussing the prophesy of the film, it's an entertaining watch; though it's a bit disappointing that more of the cast didn't take part.
Exclusive to this disc is a new audio commentary from director Iain Softley and critic Mark Kermode, who is quite enamored with the film. Softley starts off by talking about where the idea for the film came from, how he directed it after making Back Beat, and his thoughts on the script that was given to him. He shares some interesting stories about not wanting it to be an exclusively American film but rather an international film, Simon Boswell's contributions to the music in the film, having London double for New York City, Danny Boyle's thoughts on the film and how that led to a certain cast member landing a role in Trainspotting, the more prescient aspects of the story, working with Angelina Jolie on the picture, attending a hackers convention to learn more about the reality of all of this, the use of color coding in the picture and quite a bit more. This is a very strong track, there's a lot of information in here but at the same time it's easy to listen to and very conversational in tone. Softley has plenty to say about the picture while Kermode is clearly well-informed about the picture and those who made it and does a great job of keeping the director engaged in the talk.
The disc also includes a theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection. 88 Films has also done a nice job with the packaging here, the first run copies come with a limited-edition glossy O-card and a fold-out poster. Some nice reversible cover art is also included.
Hackers - The Final Word:
Hackers is seriously dated but it remains a pretty entertaining watch, made with a pretty decent cast. 88 Films gives the film a nice release with a fine transfer, strong audio and some interesting extra features as well, beating the North American release by including the extra commentary track and a 5.1 mix.
Click on the images below for full sized Hackers Blu-ray screen caps!
