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Hackers
Along with his new friends, a teenager who was arrested by the US Secret Service and banned from using a computer for writing a computer virus discovers a plot by a nefarious hacker, but they must use their computer skills to find the evidence while being pursued by the Secret Service and the evil computer genius behind the virus.
1995 · Directed by Iain Softley · 105 min · Action · Crime · Thriller · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 10 frames
Tagline
Their crime is curiosity.
Plot
In 1988, 11-year-old Dade "Zero Cool" Murphy is banned from owning or operating computers and telephones until his 18th birthday, after his family is fined US$45,000 for his crashing of 1,507 computer systems, causing a seven-point drop in the New York Stock Exchange.
On his 18th birthday, Dade has moved to New York City with his mother, and his ban is lifted. While he hacks into a local TV station, another hacker by the handle of "Acid Burn" counters Dade's attack and eventually kicks him out. At school, Dade joins a group of hackers: Ramon "The Phantom Phreak" Sanchez, Emmanuel "Cereal Killer" Goldstein, Paul "Lord Nikon" Cook, Joey Pardella (a novice hacker without an alias and the youngest member), and Kate "Acid Burn" Libby—the hacker who kicked him out of the TV station earlier.
Joey, out to prove his skills, breaks into a "Gibson" supercomputer owned by the Ellingson Mineral Corporation. While he is downloading a garbage file as proof of his feat, his mother disconnects his computer, leaving him with a fragmented file. His intrusion has been noticed and brought to the attention of computer security officer Eugene "The Plague" Belford, a former hacker. Plague realizes that the downloaded garbage file is a worm he himself inserted to defraud Ellingson. Claiming the file is the code to the "Da Vinci" computer virus that will capsize the company's oil tanker fleet, and pretending the hackers are to blame, he enlists the U.S. Secret Service to recover the file. In fact, Plague had inserted the "Da Vinci" virus as a red herring to cover for his worm.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Rafael Moreu
- Cinematography: Andrzej Sekula
- Edited by: Martin Walsh, Chris Blunden
- Music: Simon Boswell, Guy Pratt
- Production design: John Beard
- Produced by: Ralph Winter, Michael Peyser
Cast
- Jonny Lee Miller as Dade Murphy / 'Crash Override' / 'Zero Cool'
- Angelina Jolie as Kate Libby / 'Acid Burn'
- Matthew Lillard as Emmanuelle Goldstein / 'Cereal Killer'
- Jesse Bradford as Joey Pardella
- Renoly Santiago as Ramon Sanchez / 'Phantom Phreak'
- Laurence Mason as Paul Cook / 'Lord Nikon'
- Fisher Stevens as Eugene Belford / 'The Plague' / Mr. Babbage
- Lorraine Bracco as Margo
- Wendell Pierce as S.S. Agent Richard Gill
- Michael Gaston as S.S. Agent Bob
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English, Italian, Japanese, Russian
- Studios: Suftley, United Artists, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Budget: $20,000,000
- Box office: $7,563,728
- Themes: new york city, computer, hacker, computer virus, virtual reality, prank, internet, cyberpunk, hacking, secret service
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