Hackers have always been a source of inspiration for filmmakers. In the past we have seen movies like Sneakers and Hackers touching the subject. Not all of them were that succesful, but still they managed to gather some sort of cult following. The same thing counts for this movie.
"Takedown", based on the real-life events described in the novel by Tsutomu Shimomura, is a story about master-hacker Kevin Mitnick (Skeet Ulrich) and his struggle with the FBI. Mitnick hacks into government adviser Tsutomu Shimomura's (Russell Wong) computer and steals some information from this man. Among this info are the blueprints and complete code for a master-virus designed to protect and/or destroy entire countries. Tsutomu wants these back and decides to pursue Mitnick. This is the premise for a good story, unfortunately this story never gets any further than being a Monday-night TV movie.
The acting was OK from some of the cast, but there were also dismal performances not even worth mentioning. The production values were average, not very exciting. I can't help but thinking that when somebody would want to make a serious movie about computer-people, there almost always are these annoying graphics displays and irritating sounds, when will there ever be a movie that displays screens not in a Hollywood fashion.
The story had some major flaws, characters weren't explained enough, the story had some holes in it, the technology seemed at times a little too much out of this world (although it is supposed to be based on true events).
Although I am convinced that this is not a brilliant pic, it was still entertaining enough to keep me hooked to the screen until the end. The humor was good enough, it had some chuckles to distribute. The action was alright, and it is just plain cool to watch people fiddling around with gadgets and computers (this made Sneakers the great movie it is, not the story).
All in all an agreeable pass-time, although the DVD version I watched sucked extremely (4:3 screen ratio with fixed Dutch subtitles, yuch).
7/10
"Takedown", based on the real-life events described in the novel by Tsutomu Shimomura, is a story about master-hacker Kevin Mitnick (Skeet Ulrich) and his struggle with the FBI. Mitnick hacks into government adviser Tsutomu Shimomura's (Russell Wong) computer and steals some information from this man. Among this info are the blueprints and complete code for a master-virus designed to protect and/or destroy entire countries. Tsutomu wants these back and decides to pursue Mitnick. This is the premise for a good story, unfortunately this story never gets any further than being a Monday-night TV movie.
The acting was OK from some of the cast, but there were also dismal performances not even worth mentioning. The production values were average, not very exciting. I can't help but thinking that when somebody would want to make a serious movie about computer-people, there almost always are these annoying graphics displays and irritating sounds, when will there ever be a movie that displays screens not in a Hollywood fashion.
The story had some major flaws, characters weren't explained enough, the story had some holes in it, the technology seemed at times a little too much out of this world (although it is supposed to be based on true events).
Although I am convinced that this is not a brilliant pic, it was still entertaining enough to keep me hooked to the screen until the end. The humor was good enough, it had some chuckles to distribute. The action was alright, and it is just plain cool to watch people fiddling around with gadgets and computers (this made Sneakers the great movie it is, not the story).
All in all an agreeable pass-time, although the DVD version I watched sucked extremely (4:3 screen ratio with fixed Dutch subtitles, yuch).
7/10