1. Decker, Brad
FS 585
3/19/15
Film Review:
Hackers
Twenty years after its release, it is difficult to say how Iain Softley’s ​Hackers​ (Softley)
should be viewed. On one hand, the film is a campy, almost clumsy take on “hacker culture,”
which in 1995 could not have possibly looked the way it is presented in the film. On the other, it
has oddly relevant points to make about the nature of information, government and corporate
cooperation, and the role of online culture in fostering alternative lifestyles outside the “norms”
perpetrated by mainstream media and society.
The film centers around a group of teens attending a New York high school. Dade,
played by Johnny Lee Miller, is new in town; he moved on his 18th birthday to the city, ten years
after being convicted of criminally hacking a financial database and being banned from computer
use until he reaches adulthood. Soon after the ban is lifted, he dons a new online persona and
jumps back into the world of hacking, depicted in the film as frenzied tapping on a keyboard as
colored lights emerge from the monitor. He also quickly falls in with a group of like­minded
students who consider themselves “elite” hackers, capable of great feats of cyber­prowess.
Notably, the group features a young Angelina Jolie as Kate, Dade’s love interest and hacking
rival. Beyond the fledgling star­power of the two leads, the cast of protagonists is something of a
multiracial stew of misfits, as was the trend when it came to youth­oriented media of the
mid­1990’s. Laurence Mason’s Nikon, Renoly Santiago’s Phreak, Matthew Lillard’s Cereal, and

2. Jesse Bradford’s Joey round out the group, each with their own quirks and hints at their social
otherness. Phreak, for example, is the child of an immigrant family who borders on a queer
reading, while Cereal seems to be without adult supervision or knowledge of social conventions.
Together, the ragtag group of hackers must uncover a plot to blame one of their own for
planting a virus in a corporate computer system run by a cartoonishly evil administrator known
as “The Plague”(Fisher Stevens), who plans to extort his own employer using the hackers as a
scapegoat. All the while, they must also struggle against government agents who seem to be in
the pocket of the corporation, out to capture additional evidence to bring the rest of them in.
Through a series of mishaps, covert hackings, and the occasional scene at the local hackers­only
bar, the group manages to catch The Plague red­handed, exonerating their comrade and saving
the reputation of hackers everywhere.
Where the film shines is in creating a group of outsiders that are confident in their
superiority over their non­hacking peers. This film is a far cry from ​Revenge of the Nerds​, as the
“nerds” in this film need no avenging, but are rather masters of a domain only they can control.
The hackers in this film are unbound by the rules of society, as their skills with a keyboard can
get them anything they require­ from free phone calls at any payphone to an immediate change in
television programming. This is othering in its most positive form, and its importance is not
completely apparent until the hackers attend a party at a dance club hosted by the characters
Razor and Blade (Darren Lee and Peter Y. Kim, respectively), two hackers known for their
weekly hijacking of television signals, allowing them to host their own hacking­themed show.
The club is lit only by strobe lights, and is filled with characters clearly dressed to represent
deviance­ that is, they wear clothes that feature leather, outlandishly sculpted hats, and oddly

3. placed chains and spikes­ but the protagonists pay no mind. They belong in this world just as
much as they do any other. Their online actions are what define them, and those actions come
without stigma. Razor and Blade are flamboyant gay men, wearing heavy makeup and lounging
on couches as they oversee their domain of thumping music and flashing lights, but this is not
their narrative importance. They are “elite,” and therefore earn respect for their skills­ their
sexuality is of no importance in the world of cyberspace.
Of course, this is applicable to the current online scene, where a username can come with
a reputation completely separate from the one using it. Behind the veil that is the internet, race,
gender, and sexuality disappear, leaving only the discrete content left by a user to judge them by.
While we now maintain several versions of our “real” selves on various online platforms, the
world of anonymity is still easily accessible, and provides its users with the freedom to discuss
ideas and information that may otherwise be taboo. In a sense, the internet has evolved, but kept
the roots of acceptance seen in this film.
In a world where a single cyber­attack can cost a multinational movie studio millions of
dollars in potential revenue and cause an immeasurable loss of reputation from leaked
correspondence and vague threats of attacks, this now­anachronistic film seems almost fresh in
its relevance. In the intervening years, the internet has gone from an obscure hobby, accessible
only through prohibitively expensive and arcane modems and allegedly portable computers, to a
ubiquitous and almost necessary part of modern life. News coverage continues to emerge of
young people, drawn to the freedom of information that the internet can provide, who have
committed criminal acts of copyright infringement or hacking in the name of desires as simple as
entertainment, and yet are punished as adults for their actions. A particularly chilling scene in

4. Hackers​ features the group being handcuffed and dragged into police vehicles on suspicion of
planting the virus­ something they deny but cannot prove they are innocent of. The scene is one
of the most genuine in the film, completely separate from the veneer of rollerblading attitude
otherwise presented by the protagonists, and it still rings home.
Twenty years after the film’s release, it is still unclear how one ought to handle the
admittedly silly plot and aesthetic of ​Hackers​, but some of its messages remain relevant. The
fight for the freedom of information continues in the current age, and, as the protagonists of the
film often say, one solution may be to, “Hack the Planet.”