Trainspotting

Trainspotting flew out of the gates in 1996 and took the world by storm, first causing a sensation in the United Kingdom, and then moving on to the United States bolstered by a soundtrack that mixed classic rockers (Lou Reed, Iggy Pop) with contemporary ones (Blur, Primal Scream). Audiences couldn’t get enough of this gritty, often funny, sometimes harrowing tale of Scottish heroin addicts. Based on Irvine Welsh’s edgy cult novel of the same name, Trainspotting was adapted by a trio of filmmakers – director Danny Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald – who had previously collaborated on the nasty suspense thriller Shallow Grave (1994). They chose just the right passages from the novel and proceeded to capture the spirit of what Welsh was trying to say without judging the characters. This resulted in the film getting into trouble as some critics felt it glorified drug addiction. The film takes an unflinching look at the lives of a group of drug addicts and shows why they do drugs — the highs are so unbelievably amazing. However, Trainspotting also shows the flip side: death, poverty and desperation, which lead to stealing, lying and cheating just to get more drugs. Regardless, the film was a commercial and critical success, spawning all sorts of imitators and influencing countless other U.K. filmmakers to go through the door that it kicked open.


The six-minute prologue does a brilliant job of introducing a group of Scottish drug addicts as seen through the eyes of one of them — Mark “Rent Boy” Renton (Ewan McGregor). His friends include a speed freak motormouth named Daniel “Spud” Murphy (Ewen Bremner), a suave ladies’ man, Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller), straight-edged Tommy MacKenzie (Kevin McKidd) and sociopath Francis “Franco” Begbie (Robert Carlyle). Each one of them has their own distinct personality that each actor vividly brings to life. This prologue also sets the tone for the rest of the film as it starts literally on the run with Renton and Spud being chased by the cops to the pounding strains of “Lust for Life” by Iggy Pop (before it became overused thanks to countless commercials using it bizarrely out of context) as Renton’s voiceover narration talks about his “sincere and truthful junk habit.”

The energetic camerawork — fasting moving tracking shots (that recall Mean Streets) as Spud and Renton run from the police and the freeze frames (reminiscent of GoodFellas) with title cards identifying each character is an obvious stylistic homage to Martin Scorsese. Like many of his films, Trainspotting is bursting at the seams with energy and vitality that is very engaging. The prologue does its job by immediately grabbing our attention and drawing us into this world populated by colorful characters. After 30 minutes of showing the incredible highs of shooting heroin where we’re caught up in the euphoria of it with Renton and his friends, director Danny Boyle starts to show the ugly side, starting with the death of fellow junkie Allison’s baby due to neglect.

From there, Renton and Spud get arrested for stealing with the former going into a rehab program while the latter goes to jail but not before Renton takes one more hit and promptly overdoses in a surreal bit where he sinks into the floor and is taken to the hospital by taxi seen mostly from his zonked out point-of-view to the strains of “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed. However, Trainspotting’s heart of darkness is the sequence where Renton goes through the horrors of withdrawal and his reality becomes warped by hallucinations of Allison’s dead baby and his friends. Ewan McGregor really does a fantastic job of conveying Renton in the depths of a painful and terrifying withdrawal.

John Hodge’s screenplay masterfully distills Welsh’s novel to its essence and includes some of its most memorable dialogue. From Renton’s famous “Choose life” monologue (“Choose life ... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?”) to Sick Boy’s “Unifying Theory of Life” speech (“Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever.”), Trainspotting has insanely quotable lines. This helped it develop a loyal cult following over the years that continues to champion the film even to this day. And yet what resonates most is its honesty. The film doesn’t sugarcoat its message and it isn’t preachy about it either. There is an ironic detachment that transforms it into a playful black comedy mixed with gritty drama and surreal sequences.

It doesn’t hurt that this excellent material is brought to life by a fantastic cast of then relative unknowns (especially to North American audiences). Ewan McGregor has the toughest role in the film playing an unrepentant junkie while also acting as the anchor that the audience identifies with and the character that the rest of the cast revolves around. It is a tricky balancing act because Renton does things that make him unlikable and yet we still root for him because of McGregor’s charisma. Fresh from his role as an American computer user in Hackers (1995), Jonny Lee Miller plays Sick Boy, Renton’s best mate but someone who lacks “moral fiber” despite his vast knowledge of Sean Connery. He ends up taking advantage of his friend in a dodgy scheme and Miller does a nice of showing how Sick Boy went from best mate to scheming con man.

Robert Carlyle is also great as the completely unhinged Begbie. The scene where he recounts a colorful story about playing pool (“I'm playing like Paul-Fuckin'-Newman by the way.”) and dealing with his cocky opponent (“You ken me, I'm not the type of cunt that goes looking for fuckin' bother, like, but at the end of the day I'm the cunt with a pool cue and he can get the fat end in his puss any time he fucking wanted like.”) perfectly captures the essence of his character. Begbie gets his kicks from starting up trouble. As Renton puts it, “Begbie didn't do drugs either. He just did people. That's what he got off on; his own sensory addiction.” Carlyle has a frightening intensity and an unpredictability that is unsettling and exciting to watch. Ewen Bremner completes the core group of characters as the not-too bright Spud. He has a good scene early on when, hopped up on speed, he goes to a job interview with the notion of sabotaging it without appearing to. It’s a tricky tightrope that Bremner handles expertly.

Trainspotting also features one of the best contemporary soundtracks with an eclectic mix of British music from the likes of Primal Scream, New Order, Blur and Underworld, and from America, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. The music veers back and forth from the adrenaline-rush of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” to the faux spy music by Primal Scream to the drugged-out mellow mood music of “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed. Taking a page out of Scorsese’s book, the filmmakers use the music as signposts by conveying the transition of guitar-driven rock in the 1980s to the acid house music scene in the 1990s.

Producer Andrew Macdonald first read Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting on a plane in December 1993 and felt that it could be made into a film. He turned it on to his filmmaking partners, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge in February 1994. Boyle was excited by its potential to be the “most energetic film you’ve ever seen – about something that ultimately ends up in purgatory or worse.” He convinced Welsh to let them option the rights to his book by writing a letter stating that Hodge and Macdonald were “the two most important Scotsmen since Kenny Dalglish and Alex Ferguson.” (legendary European football player and manager, respectively, from Scotland) Welsh remembered that most people interested in optioning his book, “wanted to make a po-faced piece of social realism like Christiane F or The Basketball Diaries.” He was impressed that Boyle and his partners wanted everyone to see the film and “not just the arthouse audience.” Welsh agreed to sell the rights to them.

In October 1994, Boyle, Hodge and Macdonald spent a lot of time discussing which chapters of the book would and would not translate onto film. Hodge adapted the novel, finishing a first draft by December, while Macdonald secured financing from Channel 4, a British television station known for funding independent films. According to the screenwriter, his goal was to “produce a screenplay which would seem to have a beginning, a middle and an end, would last 90 minutes and would convey at least some of the spirit and the content of the book.”

Pre-production on Trainspotting began in April 1995. When it came to casting the pivotal role of Mark Renton, Boyle wanted somebody who had the quality “Michael Caine’s got in Alfie and Malcolm McDowell’s got in A Clockwork Orange”: a repulsive character with charm “that makes you feel deeply ambiguous about what he’s doing.” Boyle and Macdonald were impressed with the performance Ewan McGregor had given in their previous film, Shallow Grave, and cast him in advance. Ewen Bremner had actually played Renton in the stage adaptation but agreed to play the role of Spud because he felt “that these characters were part of my heritage.” Boyle had heard about Jonny Lee Miller playing an American in Hackers and was impressed with him when he auditioned by doing a Sean Connery accent. For the role of Begbie, Boyle thought about casting Christopher Eccleston who had been in Shallow Grave but asked Robert Carlyle instead. The actor said, “I’ve met loads of Begbies in my time. Wander round Glasgow on Saturday night and you’ve a good chance of running into Begbie.”

Once cast, Ewan McGregor shaved his head and lost 26 pounds. To research the role, the actor actually considered taking heroin but the more he read and learned about it, the less he wanted to do it. Then, he went to Glasgow and met people from the Carlton Athletic Recovery Group, an organization of recovering heroin addicts. He (and several other cast members) took classes on how to cook up a shot of drugs using glucose powder.

With a budget of $2.5 million, Trainspotting was shot during the summer of 1995 over seven weeks. The cast and crew moved into an abandoned cigarette factory in Glasgow. Due to the rather small budget and limited shooting schedule, most scenes were shot in one take with the effects done practically. For example, when Renton sank into the floor after overdosing on heroin, the crew built a platform above a trap door and lowered actor McGregor down.

When Trainspotting was shown out-of-competition at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, it received a standing ovation. Once Miramax Films picked it up for North America, Macdonald worked with them to sell the film as a British answer to Pulp Fiction (1994), flooding the market with postcards, posters, books, soundtrack albums, and a revamped music video for Iggy Pop’s’ “Lust for Life” directed by Boyle.

The critical reaction towards Trainspotting was generally very favorable. In the U.K., The Guardian’s Derek Malcolm wrote, “Even so, this is an extraordinary achievement and a breakthrough British film, shot by Brian Tufano with real resource, fashioned more imaginatively than Shallow Grave by Boyle, less determined to please, and acted out with a freedom of expression that's often astonishing.” In his review for Sight and Sound magazine, Philip Kemp wrote, “Following up a critically-acclaimed debut is difficult, but Danny Boyle and his colleagues have cleared that hurdle triumphantly. Trainspotting establishes them beyond any doubt as one of the most dynamic and exciting forces in British cinema.” Empire magazine gave the film five out of five stars and felt that it was, “Something Britain can be proud of and Hollywood must be afraid of. If we Brits can make movies this good about subjects this horrific, what chance does Tinseltown have?”

Stateside, critics also gave the film positive notices. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “It uses a colorful vocabulary, it contains a lot of energy, it elevates its miserable heroes to the status of icons (in their own eyes, that is), and it does evoke the Edinburgh drug landscape with a conviction that seems born of close observation. But what else does it do? Does it lead anywhere? Say anything? Not really. That's the whole point.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan wrote, “And though some of the words get lost in either local slang or thick Scottish accents, the script's most memorable flights invariably go to Renton, devoid of regret or remorse, wised up to the nth degree. His delight in language nicely balances his ruthlessness, and in McGregor … the film has an actor whose magnetism monopolizes our attention no matter what.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Carlyle, whose mellow good looks make Begbie's short fuse seem all the more treacherous, gives the scariest barroom-psycho performance in years.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Mr. McGregor underplays Renton to dry perfection without letting viewers lose sight of the character's appeal. Comic timing is everything here, and Mr. Boyle elicits disarmingly droll performances all around.” The Washington Post’s Desson Howe felt it was “Without a doubt, this is the most provocative, enjoyable pop-cultural experience since Pulp Fiction.”

Trainspotting has aged surprisingly well considering it was one of those zeitgeist-defining movies of the ‘90s. It also set the tone and style of later British exports, opening the floodgates for films like the nasty crime drama Twin Town (1997), the hyperactive rave culture comedy Human Traffic (1999) and the films of Guy Ritchie. In an interview for The Guardian, Boyle said, “Has it dated? I can't tell you that. I am alarmed sometimes by how young the people are who say they've seen and loved Trainspotting, so it might have lost an edge it once had. Shallow Grave looks dated, fashion-wise, but Trainspotting has an abiding style.”

SOURCES

Gordinier, Jeff. "Stupor Heroes." Entertainment Weekly. August 2, 1996.

Grundy, Gareth. "Hey! Hey! We're the Junkies!" Neon. February 1998.

"Trainspotting." Empire. June 1999. 

Hackers

The first few times I watched Hackers (1995) I hated it. I found its depiction of computer hacking laughably unrealistic. Its characters were shallow and the dialogue cheesy beyond belief. Basically, I found the film to be an affront to everything I knew and loved about the Cyberpunk genre. Call it Cheeserpunk. That being said, it’s amazing what more than ten years and repeated viewings on cable television will do to wear down your resolve. That, and my good friend Rob’s relentless championing of the film ever since I can remember. Yes, I stopped hating and learned to love this scrappy little piece of entertainment and to embrace all of its flaws as virtues. Obviously, we’re not talking Shakespeare here but it’s not exactly Leonard Part 6 (1987) either. Hackers really should be judged on its own terms and it’s interesting how the passage of time can get you to look at something in a completely different way. So let’s go back to the mid-1990s shall we? When Jolt Cola was the preferred beverage of the hacker elite. Before the advent of high-speed Internet and when cyberspace seemed so much smaller than it does now. Hackers certainly didn’t set the world on fire but it didn’t crash and burn either and was actually fairly well-received by film critics. Most significantly, it featured rather prominently a young actress who would go on to bigger and better things: Angelina Jolie. She created quite an impression with those sexy, bee-stung lips and don’t-fuck-with-me attitude of someone just starting out and with something to prove.

When he was 11-years-old, Dade Murphy a.k.a. Zero Cool, crashed 1,507 computer systems in one day. He was busted and forbidden to go near a computer or use a touch-tone telephone until he turned 18. Seven years later, Dade (Jonny Lee Miller) and his mother (Alberta Watson) move to New York City where he spends his spare time doing harmless hacks, like breaking into a small, local television station and replacing a talk show featuring a Rush Limbaugh wannabe with a vintage episode of The Outer Limits. That is, until he runs into another hacker by the name of Acid Burn who bounces him out of the system in a colorful cheesy sequence that mixes an early form of Instant Messaging with clips from vintage films in an attempt to depict their battle in a visually interesting way because, let’s face it, there is nothing sexy about watching two people type away on their computers.

Dade shows up to his first day at high school and is immediately smitten with a beautiful girl named Kate Libby a.k.a. Acid Burn (Angelina Jolie) who proceeds to pull a prank that leaves him stranded on the roof with several other gullible new students. Of course, this establishes an antagonistic love-hate relationship between the two like some kind of unholy union between Howard Hawks and Steve Jobs. While hacking into the school computer system (to infiltrate Kate’s English class no less), Dade catches the attention of the Phantom Phreak a.k.a. Ramon Sanchez (Renoly Santiago) who invites him to an arcade that he and his fellow hackers frequent. It’s there that he meets Cereal Killer a.k.a. Emmanuel Goldstein (Matthew Lillard), Joey Pardella (Jesse Bradford), a hyperactive doofus always trying to impress his friends by trying to pull righteous hacks, and, a little later on, Lord Nikon a.k.a. Paul Cook (Laurence Mason), a hacker with a photographic memory. He also crosses paths yet again with Kate and proceeds to beat her high score on a video game that nobody has ever bested her at. Afterwards, Phreak informs Dade, “Congratulations. You just made an enemy for life.” The arcade is a dream hangout for teens with T.V.s everywhere, kids rollerblading all over the place, lots of video games, and loud dance music – what more could you want at that age?

Dade and Kate continue to flirt-er, prank each other but this is put on the backburner when Joey is busted by the Feds for hacking into and retrieving a highly sensitive garbage file from a supercomputer (known as a Gibson, an obvious nod Cyberpunk author William Gibson). It turns out that the garbage file is more valuable then he realizes as it contains vital information about a corporate hacker named The Plague a.k.a. Eugene Belford (Fisher Stevens) who works for mega-corporation Ellingson Mineral Company. Unbeknownst to its clueless executives, The Plague is actually ripping them off and covering his tracks by unleashing a computer virus that will cause one of their oil tankers to capsize and spill its contents into the ocean at a predetermined time. He is also in cahoots with Margo (Lorraine Bracco), a technically illiterate corporate executive who is getting cozy with him between the sheets.

When Joey and then Phreak are busted for possessing a copy of the garbage file, Dade, Kate, Cereal Killer, and Lord Nikon team up to clear their friends’ names and expose The Plague’s nefarious scheme. Naturally, he blames the virus on our hacker heroes and this brings in the Secret Service, led by Agent Gill (Wendell Pierce), a self-important jerk who thinks that he’s smarter than these kids. So, they decide to teach him a lesson in an amusing montage where Dade and Kate compete to see who can make Gill look more foolish and this involves listing his work phone in a kinky personal ad, canceling his credit card and, in a nice touch, declaring him deceased.

With those pouty, sexy lips, attractive figure (accentuated by a series of form-fitting outfits no less) and short, pixie haircut, Angelina Jolie resembles a rather gorgeous Romulan in this film. Even this early on in her career, she exuded a natural charisma, an impressive confidence and exotic looks that are fascinating to watch. Her character is probably the one that comes closest to the actual Cyberpunk genre with her futuristic club kid attire and punk rock attitude with just a hint of vulnerability. Already you can see the makings of a big-time movie star. For all of their cyber-sparring, Kate and Dade have a strong chemistry together as did Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller. They became an actual couple while making this film and it certainly translates on-screen as you can’t fake the kind of attraction they have towards each other. You can see it in the way they look at each other. Miller acquits himself just fine as a confident elite hacker. He wisely delivers an understated performance instead of trying to compete with the colorful supporting cast. His best scenes are, not surprisingly, with Jolie. He would be able to cut loose and steal scenes in his next film, the now iconic Trainspotting (1996), which really allowed him to show his acting chops in a way that Hackers never could.

Cereal Killer is one of the many spazzy characters that populate Matthew Lillard’s resume. Early on, his character infiltrates Dade and Kate’s Advanced English class just so he can participate in an exercise where students quote a passage from a significant author of the 20th century. While Dade quotes Allen Ginsberg (nice touch), Cereal, befitting his gonzo behavior, cites Ozzy Osbourne: “Of all the things I’ve lost I miss my mind the most.” Watching Jolie’s reaction to Lillard’s mock confusion at being called out for being in the wrong class is priceless and every time I see it I wonder if she’s breaking character and they decided to keep it in. Lillard would go to make a career out of playing motor-mouthed characters in films like Scream (1996) and SLC Punk (1998).

I have a feeling that recent Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens would probably like to forget this film but he certainly commits to the role, playing the cartoonish villain The Plague complete with cheesy dialogue and condescending attitude that just begs for him to be foiled by Dade and his buddies. Stevens looks like he’s having a lot of fun with the role and punctuates his scenes with little gestures or gives his dialogue a bit of a spin that lets you know he is fully aware of the kind of film this is and his role in it: the moustache-twirling bad guy. Most impressively, Stevens manages to spout such gems as, “God wouldn’t be up this late,” with a straight face. Now, that’s acting. Lorraine Bracco, a long way from the heights of GoodFellas (1990), has the thankless task of playing the techno-phobe foil to Stevens’ oily villain. She vamps along gamely but her considerable talents are pretty much wasted in this film.

It’s hard to believe that the same guy who directed Backbeat (1994), a gritty biopic about the early days of The Beatles before they made it big, also made Hackers. You couldn’t get more different in look or tone but, thematically, they are similar in the sense that they’re both about young people trying to express themselves and who live outside the mainstream. Director Iain Softley does everything he can to make Hackers look as visually dynamic as possible. The hacking/cyberspace sequences are certainly done in the spirit of films like Tron (1982) or television shows like Max Headroom with neon green text scrolling along tall columns and when a data file is discovered all kinds of multi-colored words come flying out at you. In other words, Softley eschews realism in favor of vibrant, colorful imagery in a playful way befitting the film’s young protagonists, like this would be the kind of film that they would watch over many cans of Jolt Cola. To this end, Softley also populates Hackers with all kinds of pulsating electronica, including the likes of Orbital, Prodigy, Massive Attack, and Underworld – a who’s who of the genre in the ‘90s. The musical highlight of Hackers for me is the use of the hypnotically groovy track, “Connected” by the Stereo MCs that plays during the party scene at Kate’s as Cereal and Dade work the room. It has an insanely catchy groove that instantly takes me back to that time quite unlike any other song in that genre.

Screenwriter Rafael Moreu had been interested in computer hacking since the early 1980s. After the crackdown in the United States during 1989-90, he decided to write a screenplay about this subculture. For research, Moreu went to a meeting organized by the New York-based hacker magazine 2600. There, he met Phiber Optik a.k.a. Mark Abene, a 22-year-old hacker who would go on to spend most of 1994 in prison on hacking charges. Moreu also hung out with other young hackers who were being hassled by the government and began to figure out how all this material 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.”

One of the film’s producers Janet Graham realized that Moreu’s script was tapping into the zeitgeist of the moment: "We recognized that hacking has become a cultural phenomenon. Here are these very bright kids, who are multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and from every strata. They are neither nerds nor terrorists, but they have become proficient in something with ramifications most of us have only begun to comprehend.” Director Softley was also drawn to the cultural significance of hackers: "It wasn't as much the computers as the idea that here was a phenomenon that today's generation has latched onto in the way that their predecessors latched onto rock 'n' roll. I think their agenda is simply to have fun, to do what they want to do and not allow anybody to tell them what not to do."

Softley and casting director Dianne Crittenden saw over 1,000 actors from England and the United States and, as a result, landed then-newcomers Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie. To prepare for the film, the cast spent three weeks learning how to type, rollerblade and getting to know each other. This clearly paid off as they interact with each other in the film much like actual friends would as evident in the scene in the arcade or when they go to Kate’s party. In addition, the cast also read a lot about computers and met with actual hackers while actor Jonny Lee Miller even attended a convention.

The arcade in the film where the protagonists hang out came out of research that the filmmakers did. Their aim was to make it part nightclub, part clubhouse – a place where hackers came to share information, scope out the latest gear and challenge each other on cutting edge video games. The arcade was built from scratch in an abandoned indoor swimming pool on the edges of London. The video game that Dade and Kate play was called WipeOut and was created by Sony Playstation.

Amazingly, director Iain Softley did not use any computer graphics for the cyberspace sequences. He wanted to go for “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.” According to Miller, Softley wanted “to go for a cyberimagery that speaks for the late twentieth century, where it is reflected in fashion, in music, in everything. The thriller bit is really a peg to hang it all on.” In regards to the film’s visuals, Softley said, “You can’t film the transfer of data. I wanted it to be a psychedelic thing, with references to 2001. I was very cavalier about representing computers, I wanted it to be a metaphor and not take itself too seriously. I see it almost as a cyber fairytale.”

For such an easy target for critics, Hackers actually garnered a decent amount of positive reviews. 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.” The San Francisco Chronicle’s Peter Stack 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.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “despite her sullen posturing, which is all this role requires, Ms. Jolie has the sweetly cherubic looks of her father, Jon Voight.” USA Today gave Hackers 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.” The Toronto Star’s 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.”

However, the Los Angeles Times’ David Kronke obviously didn’t click with the film’s youthful exuberance when he wrote, "All this is courtesy of the short-circuited imagination of Rafael Moreu, making his feature screenwriting debut, and director Iain Softley, who hopes that if he piles on the attitude and stylized visuals, no one will notice just how empty and uninvolving the story really is. All the sound and fury in the world can't disguise the fact that yowling music, typing montages and computer animation do not a gripping finale make.” 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.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “D” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “What's most grating about Hackers, however, is the way the movie buys in to the computer-kid-as-elite-rebel mystique currently being peddled by magazines like Wired.”

When it was released the film’s screenwriter saw it 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 evolution.” Yeah, riiiight. Half-jokingly, he saw Hackers as a film about relationships, a “cyberpunk romantic comedy.” (?!) Oddly enough, Moreu only went on to only pen one other screenplay that was made into a film, a lackluster sequel to Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) no less which pretty much sunk his career and he hasn’t been heard from since.

So, what do we learn about hacking from this film? Not much, aside from don’t do a hack from your personal computer on a target located across state lines because you’ll get busted by the Feds. Also, the most commonly used passwords apparently are: love, secret and sex with special mention going to god because system operators have huge male egos. And, finally, hacking is more than just a crime, it’s a survival trait. In some respects, Hackers is the ‘90s answer to Tron as both films feature a brilliant underground hacker infiltrating a large corporate mainframe in order to expose wrong-doings and clear his name. After all, information just wants to be free, right? Their target demographic may be different but their goal is the same: to make an entertaining popcorn movie. When you get down to it, Hackers is silly fun with nothing more on its mind then to have a good time and what’s wrong with that?

Here is a fantastic review of the film over at Cashiers du Cinemart.

SOURCES

“Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie – The Happy Couple.” Empire. June 1996.

McClellan, Jim. “Cyberspace: The Hack Pack.” The Observer. January 8, 1995.

Page, Aubrey. “7 Highlights from the 20^th Anniversary Celebration of Hackers, Including Sequel Talk and Fashion Drama.” Indiewire. September 16, 2015.

Penfold, Phil. “Good Work If You Can Hack It.” The Herald. May 3, 1996.