Summary: As punishment for writing a virus, a boy is arrested by the Secret Service and banned from using a computer until his 18th birthday. Years later, he and a bunch of friends discover a plan to unleash a harmful computer virus across the world. They must use their computer skills to find evidence of the plot while avoiding the Secret Service and the antagonist responsible for the dangerous virus.
Review: The tagline for the 1995 film Hackers was "Their only crime was curiosity." It was this same sense of curiosity that made me watch Hackers a few years ago: could the beauty of Angelina Jolie make me forget the fact that I'm watching a movie about computer hackers? Yes, Hackers, believe it or not, is a movie about, well, computer hackers. This is like calling Bull Durham "Minor League Baseball Players," and yet somehow the movie still works. The hero of the film, Dade Murphy (Johnny Lee Miller) is a youthful hacker banned from using computers by the Secret Service. Though the ban will be lifted when he turns 18, high school student Murphy cannot keep himself away from the screen. When he and some hacker friends, including Kate Libby (Jolie) discover a dastardly computer virus plot, and subsequently get blamed for it, they must not only defeat the villain (Fisher Stevens), but also clear their own names. This film, which may be the only time in your life you actually root for computer hackers, works because of two reasons: the incredible soundtrack (worth viewing just for a listen) and the chemistry between Jolie and Miller. The two, who married in real life, mix sexual tension and hacker rivalry well, and their budding relationship makes this movie worth the watch.
