Hackers (film)

The screenplay, written by Rafael Moreu, is highly inspired by the hacker and cyberpunk subcultures.[7] He saw the film as more than just about computer hacking but something much larger: "In fact, to call hackers a counterculture makes it sound like they're a transitory thing; I think they're the next step in human evolution."[8] He had been interested in hacking since the early 1980s. After the crackdown in the United States during 1989 and 1990, he decided to write a script about the subculture. For research, Moreu went to a meeting organized by the New York-based hacker magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. There, he met Phiber Optik, a.k.a. Mark Abene, a 22-year-old hacker who spent most of 1994 in prison on hacking charges.[8] Moreu also hung out with other young hackers being harassed by the government and began to figure out how it would translate into a film. He remembered, "One guy was talking about how he'd done some really interesting stuff with a laptop and payphones and that cracked it for me, because it made it cinematic".[8] The character Eugene Belford uses Babbage as a pseudonym at the end of the film, a reference to Charles Babbage, an inventor of an early form of the computer. The fictional computer mainframe named the "Gibson" is a homage to cyberpunk author William Gibson and originator of the term "Cyberspace", first in his 1982 short story "Burning Chrome" and later in his 1984 book Neuromancer.

The cast spent three weeks getting to know each other and learning how to type and rollerblade. They studied computers and met with actual computer hackers, including Tristan Louis, Kevin Mitnick, and Nicholas Jarecki. Jarecki served as a technical consultant and credits his experience on Hackers as inspiring his later career as the screenwriter and director.[9][10] Actor Jonny Lee Miller even attended a hacker's convention.[11]

According to Fisher Stevens, Quentin Tarantino was also considered for the role of The Plague.[12]

The school scenes were filmed in Stuyvesant High School and the surrounding areas in the TriBeCa, Battery Park City, and East Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in November 1994. In several exterior scenes, the viewer can see the World Financial Center. Many scenes included real school seniors as extras.[6][13]

The interior scenes for the Cyberdelia nightclub were filmed at the disused Brentford Public Baths,[14] on the outskirts of London. Producer Ralph Winter noted, "We never knew why, but the pool was designated a historic landmark, so great care had to be taken not to damage anything and to return it to its original state."[15] The exterior set was filmed in downtown Manhattan.

The scenes for Ellingson Mineral Company were filmed on set, but the establishing shots of the company's headquarters used One Liberty Plaza and took inspiration from that building to create the hardware behind "The Kernel." In the final shot of the building, Softley digitally added a swimming pool on the rooftop of the building. Additionally, establishing shots of the World Trade Center and Empire State Building were used to occasionally give the viewer a visual reminder of the city the movie was set in.

Softley did not use CGI for any of the sequences in cyberspace. He said they used "more-conventional methods of motion control, animation, models, and rotoscoping to create a real, three-dimensional world, because... computer graphics alone can sometimes lend a more flat, sterile image."[7] Video game developer Psygnosis created the CGI for the Wipeout arcade game sequence.[16]

Shortly after the filming ended, Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie were married.[17] They separated after a year and divorced in 1999, and remain good friends.[18]

MGM/UA set up a website for Hackers that soon afterwards was allegedly hacked by a group called the "Internet Liberation Front." A photograph of the film's stars Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller were doodled upon, and the words "this is going to be an entertaining fun promotional site for a movie," were replaced with "this is going to be a lame, cheesy promotional site for a movie!" The studio maintained the site during the theatrical run of the movie in its altered form.[7][19][20]

The movie poster shows Acid Burn and Crash Override with various words and ASCII symbols superimposed on their faces,[1] with the words:

• Hacker names from the movie, including Lord Nikon, Acid Burn, and Crash Override.
• Most commonly-used passwords, noted by Plague, such as God, Sex, Love, and Secret.
• Phreak, a "phone freak" hacker whose specialty is telephone systems, with the main Phreaker in the hacker group Phantom Phreak.

1. "Original Bedroom Rockers" – Kruder & Dorfmeister
2. "Cowgirl" – Underworld
3. "Voodoo People" – The Prodigy
4. "Open Up" – Leftfield (featuring John Lydon)
5. "Phoebus Apollo" – Carl Cox
6. "The Joker" – Josh Abrahams
7. "Halcyon + On + On" – Orbital
8. "Communicate" (Headquake Hazy Cloud Mix) – Plastico
9. "One Love" – The Prodigy
10. "Connected" – Stereo MCs
11. "Eyes, Lips, Body" (Mekon Vocal Mix) – Ramshackle
12. "Good Grief" – Urban Dance Squad
13. "Richest Junkie Still Alive" (Sank Remix) – Machines of Loving Grace
14. "Heaven Knows" – Squeeze

1. "Firestarter" (Empirion mix) – The Prodigy
2. "Toxygene" – The Orb
3. "Little Wonder" (Danny Saber Dance Mix) – David Bowie
4. "Fire" – Scooter
5. "Narcotic Influence 2" – Empirion
6. "Remember" – BT
7. "Go" – Moby
8. "Inspection" (Check One) – Leftfield
9. "Cherry Pie" – Underworld
10. "To Be Loved" (Disco Citizens R&D Edit) [Mix] – Luce Drayton
11. "Speed Freak" (Moby Remix) – Orbital
12. "Get Ready to Bounce" (Radio Attack) – Brooklyn Bounce
13. "Offshore" (Disco Citizens Edit) – Chicane
14. "Original" – Leftfield

1. "Why Can't It Stop" – Moby
2. "Godspeed" (BT Edit Mix) – BT
3. "Absurd" (Whitewash Mix) – Fluke
4. "Quiet Then" – Cloak
5. "I Am Fresh" – Monkey Mafia
6. "Phuture 2000" (radio edit) – Carl Cox
7. "An Fhomhair" – Orbital
8. "Fashion" (Ian Pooley Mix) – Phunky Data
9. "Psychopath" (Leftfield Mix) – John Lydon
10. "Stop & Panic" – Cirrus
11. "Strong in Love" – Chicane
12. "Hack the Planet" – Brooklyn Bounce
13. "Diskette" – Simon Boswell
14. "Launch Divinci" – Simon Boswell

Songs featured in the film but not appearing on any soundtracks:

• "Connection" – performed by Elastica
• "Real Wild Child" – written by Johnny O'Keefe, Johnny Greenan and 'Dave Owen (VIII)' (as Dave Owens)
• "Protection" – performed by Massive Attack
• "Combination" – performed by Guy Pratt
• "Grand Central Station" – performed by Deep Cover and David Gilmour[24]

The film was released September 15, 1995. It opened in 1,812 theaters and earned $3.2 million in it's opening weekend, finishing in 4th place.[25] The film ended its run with a domestic box office gross of $7.5 million.[26]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 33% based on reviews from 45 critics. The website's consensus states "Hackers has a certain stylish appeal, but its slick visuals and appealing young cast can't compensate for a clichéd and disappointingly uninspired story."[27] On Metacritic the film has a score of 46 out of 100 based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[28] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.[29]

Critics praised the film for its stylish visuals but criticized its unconvincing look at hackers and their subculture. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "The movie is smart and entertaining, then, as long as you don't take the computer stuff very seriously. I didn't. I took it approximately as seriously as the archeology in Indiana Jones".[30] On the show Siskel & Ebert, Ebert gave the film thumbs up while Gene Siskel gave the film thumbs down, saying, "I didn't find the characters that interesting and I really didn't like the villain in this piece. I thought Fisher Stevens was not very threatening... The writing is so arch."[31]

Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote "Want a believable plot or acting? Forget it. But if you just want knockout images, unabashed eye candy and a riveting look at a complex world that seems both real and fake at the same time, Hackers is one of the most intriguing movies of the year."[32] USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and Mike Clark wrote, "When a movie's premise repels all rational analysis, speed is the make-or-break component. To its credit, Hackers recalls the pumped-up energy of Pump Up the Volume, as well as its casting prowess".[33] In his review for the Toronto Star, Peter Goddard wrote, "Hackers joy-rides down the same back streets Marlon Brando did in The Wild One, or Bruce Springsteen does in Born To Run. It gives all the classic kicks of the classic B-flicks, with more action than brains, cool hair and hot clothes, and all the latest tech revved to the max".[34] Chicago Reader critic Jonathan Rosenbaum noted that, "Without being any sort of miracle, this is an engaging and lively exploitation fantasy-thriller about computer hackers, anarchistic in spirit, that succeeds at just about everything The Net failed to—especially in representing computer operations with some visual flair."[35]

The Los Angeles Times David Kronke wrote, "imagination of Rafael Moreu, making his feature screenwriting debut, and director Iain Softley...piles on the attitude and stylized visuals, no one will notice just how empty and uninvolving the story really is".[36] In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson wrote, "As its stars, Miller and Jolie seem just as one-dimensional—except that, in their case, the effect is intentional".[37] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "D" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "the movie buys in to the computer-kid-as-elite-rebel mystique currently being peddled by magazines like Wired".[38]