Hackers (1995)

The 1995 film, Hackers, is not on my to-do list because it is necessarily cyberpunk. It is set in the modern day, in fact. But there are a lot of cyberpunk elements rolling around in it: corporate tyranny, socialistic hacker communities, and FASHION. And then there's the fact that the film is a living testament to how people, and Hollywood especially, misunderstood technology and the internet in the 90s.

This was one of the films my friends and I bonded over. Not least because you get to see Angelina Jolie's boobs. And yes, that was reason enough for young me. But there was also computers! And skateboards! And teens sticking it to the man! And boobs.

Anyway, I sat down as a thirty-one year old man and forced my wife to watch this movie with me.

Oh boy.

I. Toxic

It is hard to ignore the toxic misogyny in this film. Angelina Jolie's character is a talented hacker, and says a few lines about being a radical feminist, but she is ultimately there to be eye candy and a romantic conquest for our super hacker hero, Zero Cool, I mean Crash Override. I mean Dade Murphy. Yeah, the dude has names. Jolie's Kate is a kind of proto-manic pixie dream girl (she even has the pixie cut). She exists to be bad ass enough at guy stuff to be one of the boys, but she is salivated over and ultimately conquered by one of those boys. I joked, in the intro, about her boobs, but I cannot underplay how important it was. Kate is here to give us something to look at. And, now, it feels incredibly reductive. Or, really, about par for the course for nerd culture.

The kids all smoke cigarettes and drink coffee like they have a death wish: one stupid ass kid actually has two cigarettes, one in each hand, in one scene.

Each hacker has juvenile jokes and catch phrases, like "Mess with the best, Die like the rest!" What is, I am sure, meant to sound incredibly edgy and cool really only sounds lame and pitiable.

And then there's Fisher Stevens. I know he's supposed to be the arch villain, here, but his character is so fucking gross. He mistreats everyone around him, especially the attractive executive (never really caught what she does at that company) who is inexplicably sleeping with him. He spouts off aggrandizing lines about being a keyboard cowboy and a new age digital god, and... it's all really laughable. He is not, at all, a villain to be taken seriously. But he looks COOL! With greased hair, a questionable goatee, a sweeping black leather jacket, and a piece of candy perennially in his hand, he is a vision of 90s inanity. Seriously, the director must have asked for "Cartoonish Hacker Stereotype," and the production designers complied, beautifully. Fisher Stevens, not to be outdone by his wardrobe, chews the scenery like Pac Man. He insists on being referred to as his hacker alias, The Plague (yes, even in bed), steals a floppy disc by swiping it out of another character's hand on his skateboard, which he rides around the office everywhere, and has an apartment littered with crushed soda cans and candy wrappers.

This movie feels like the filmmakers were trying to celebrate hacker culture. But they just made a farce of it. It plays like the kind of dweeby male fantasy that has made nerd culture so toxic in the intervening years. And while I do not blame Hackers, it is worth noting that the film represents what is wrong with nerdy culture so brazenly

So many years later, it stands more as an indictment than a celebration.

II. This is Definitely How Hacking Works

This movies is one of the brightest, shiniest examples of how popular culture completely misunderstood how technology works. It was the 90s, and computers were new, and the internet was a thing. People didn't get it. And neither, apparently, did Hollywood. That did not stop them from trying to make movies about technology, though.

In this film, people sit at computers and the screen images are projected onto their faces.

Lightning-like electricity crackles along computer towers as hackers... hack it.

People put on virtual headsets that seemingly do nothing other than look cool.

Fingers fly across keyboards in a flurry of movement. Ya know, typing hacking codes. And stuff.

And Fisher Stevens fends off a hacker assault on what looks like an arcade table with a bunch of buttons instead of keys.

Like... sure.

It is kind of hilarious to watch how ridiculously off-base the representation of computer technology is here.

III. What's in the what-what with that what-thing?

It is painfully obvious that the actors in this movie have no idea what they are saying. The script is loaded with techno-jargon and it is all delivered with the dead-eyed seriousness of a person who has memorized a series of sounds with little indication of what those sounds mean when uttered together as words.

Again: hilarious.

IV. This is a Five Hour Movie

It isn't. Not really. It just feels like it.

It's actually only 107 minutes.

But, god damn. I felt like I'd been watching a shitty 90s hacker movie for a lifetime. Like an old man. Filled with regret. Waiting to die.

V. A Bunch of People Totally Died

In the movie, the hackers hack the traffic lights and make them go crazy, to facilitate a rollerblading sequence (yeah, one of a few) where our heroes evade the police on the way to the subway.

We get to see some cars slide innocently into each other, as our heroes ride valiantly away. On their roller blades.

But... like... people TOTALLY died during that, right? People crossing the street must have been struck. Cars must have been t-boned. Yeah, the movie was all caught up in the fact that our rebellious hacker youths were flaunting authority that it kind of forgets why there is authority in the first place.

Oh, and Kate's "subway defense system?" The self defense tool she normally uses on creeps on the subway, which, in turn, she uses to scare off a lone security guard as she and Dade (I mean Crash (I mean Zero Cool)) break into a literal corporate waste bin? It's not a taser, or a can of mace. It's a fucking flare gun. Which she shoots at that security guard. Which means that a little B & E just turned into attempted murder. But, like, fuck that corporate stooge, right? Right?

VII. Fashion

There's a lot of it in this movie.

Oversized crop-tops? Check.

Tiny sunglasses worn indoors at night? Check.

Mesh t-shirts? Check.

Baggy, sagged cargo pants? Oh, baby, yes.

Enough leather to have killed a small heard of cattle? Double check.

VIII. Should You Watch It?

No.

It is cyberpunk in the way that Hollywood has always misunderstood what the literary genre actually is. It looks like cyberpunk, but it is a hollow-eyed idiot carbon copy. With no soul. Or, rather, a misplaced soul: it glorifies and romanticizes the life of hackers and what they do in a way that feels reductive, naive and petulant. I can see why teenage boys saw this movie and were enamored with the lifestyle and the world it presented. But, at over thirty, that vision just feels empty.

But, if you like terrible movies, this is a special kind of terrible. And you might really enjoy it.

Miscellany

- The cast spent two weeks before filming at a "boot camp" that taught them the basics of computer technology. And how to roller blade.
- The game that Dade and Kate play in the arcade was a real game, Wipeout, that was later released on the Playstation.
- The hacker manifesto read by one of the shit-ass cops is an actual text, written by a real hacker of some renown, Lloyd Blankenship.
- Director Iain Softley (what a fucking name) wanted most of the hacking sequences to be practical effects because he felt that the CG at the time was too flat and unrealistic. LOL.
- Most of the cast of "teenagers" in this film were in their early and mid-twenties during filming. And it shows.
- During the Hack the Planet sequence, where hackers from around the world start hacking The Gibson, a small bearded man outside a cafe receives a call and joins in on the hacking (typing with only two fingers, hilariously). This man was Dave Stewart. Of the Eurythmics.
- The film had a $20 million budget. It grossed just $7 million domestically.
- Roger Ebert gave this film three-out-of-four stars. Holy shit.