Hacker (2016) Review

It’s still a wonder to me why often hacker movies rarely get a good rating. There are a few iconic hacking movies out there from the Matrix, who am I, to hackers (1995). It’s safe to say that I have watched almost all hacking themed movies growing up and some of them influenced me to be curious and cautious. Some movies also got me curious about another country and Hacker (2016) was the reason I wanted to go to Thailand. The things that happened to the main character in this movie are pretty similar to my life which is why I resonate the most except Alex, the main character of that movie was a lot bolder and greedier than I do. At one point, the main character in the movie was shown to be in Thailand after running away from the cops. He was in Wat arun and also inside Bang Kwang jail. For some reason when I was a teen, those things got me curious about Thailand. Afterall, in this movie they also feature a lot of places that I want to be like Hongkong. Today after so many years, I was rewatching this movie that’s actually also released under the title “Anonymous”. But without further adieu, let’s dive into this movie.

Alex Danyliuk(Callan McAuliffe ) is a son from a ukrainian family who moved to canada in search for a better life. As a kid, their family was struggling in Canada and Alex, who is mostly left alone at home, was into computers. As a kid he wanted to follow the footsteps of Steve jobs and Bill Gates and hoped one day he could change the world. When he was in his teens, he learned to save up and eventually learned how to make money by clicking websites or known as “paid to click” schemes. It was his first dollar. Then as he grew up, he got into a little more politics and learned how the money and system works. As he went out to a cafe, he saw the tv was talking about the darkweb group who launched an attack. But he didn’t get to be that curious until the next morning he went home only to find his mother was sobbing because they might lose the house. Alex,who saved up money for college, eventually gave it all away to his mom to pay the mortgage.

Since he needed the money again, he was looking for ways to make money online faster. But the internet was full of scams.The he remembered a site called Dark Web where he eventually registered and discovered the world of cybercrime. As he eventually made his way in the forum and got more access to the forums. He started making a lot more money by doing black market trading and left home for Toronto. In Toronto, while trying to sell his black market items, he met Sye(Daniel Eric Gold), a hustler who is well-connected and can sell anything. They both became friends and started making a lot more money. Until Alex wanted to do something more and went to the bank that fired his mom and was caught.

Though he wasn’t sent to the police, he was let go and received praise from Zed(Clifton Collins Jr.), the head of the dark web. As more praise was coming, Kira Whittal(Lorraine Nicholson) wanted to meet up as she was also impressed with Alex’s job. She introduced him to the world of bitcoin and credit card cloning. Eventually the three of them worked together and moved to Hong Kong to score even bigger. That led them eventually meeting Zed. Alex and Kira then learned that everything that they used to believe wasn’t actually changing the world for the better. Eventually Alex and Kira after helping Zed cause a market crash, they were both taken away and Alex was woken up in a random place until he decided to fly to Bangkok,Thailand a place where it’s far away from everything and nobody would find them.

But days go by as Alex couldn’t meet Kira. He eventually went to an internet cafe and learned that Kira was shot and Zed was captured. At the internet cafe, he was arrested by the local police because he was reported of carding and was eventually royal pardoned after serving 2 years in the prison. As he got out of prison, he saw Kira picking him up and then Kira explained what actually happened the whole time.

The story of this movie is pretty believable. It’s almost relatable if you’re ever getting sucked into that “dark” world. There are forums like that, carding, stolen data, everything is possible. All you needed was a little desperation, just like Alex had which eventually made him bolder to do black market trading and then working with cybercriminals. Alex’s story was not a fiction, some people out there, legitimately, have a variation of what Alex went through . Once you see the money, it’s hard to get out. Although your original reason was wanting to change the world through that. Soon you’ll also quickly learn that the world doesn’t change just like the characters learned a little too late in the movie. There’s a lot of worthy quote lines that I believe too, like money doesn’t change people, it reveals them. And it was also seen that after having a lot of money, it wasn’t the only thing that he needed. It was the cause and goal that motivated him to do all that. Eventually, after some time inside the prison he learned that he hasn’t been himself and is losing the people he loves the most.

Obviously rewatching it again now, the scene looks pretty dated but in the past, I remember the cinematography was good. It was one of the best movies of its time. Although now, I still find it intriguing to watch it as I reflect that when we were young, we certainly were capable of doing dumbshit and it took some painful experiences to change us towards the better. Speaking of the setting, as a teen,I wanted to visit Hong Kong and Thailand because of this movie too. The places at the time looked pretty exotic to me. Hacker is definitely one of the movies that I could relate to. So many parts of the screenwriting really resonate with me, like at the end Alex said, “ I accepted the fact that I was alone”,”back then I wanted to change the world for the better but now my world was dead. So I just decided to give up on life but life wasn’t ready to give up on me. ” That being said, If you haven’t watched this movie, I’d definitely recommend it.