Very Cool!!!

Fresh and Exciting

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Read a book, people. This whole movie is a pack of lies. Kevin Mitnick never did any of this. He committed no acts of violence. He never financially profited from any of his 'hacking.' Check the American court records.

This movie is hilarious. It reminds me a classic Simpsons episode (when The Simpsons were good). In the ninth episode of The Simpsons' sixth season (Homer: Bad Man), Homer has a misunderstanding with the babysitter and the media portray him as a sexual offender who crushes cats with his car and tries to abuse a school girl, showing no respect for any law or moral at all. If you know Homer then you should've laughed your face off with this episode like I did (and I still do).That's exactly what we have here. In one hand, Tsutomu Shimomura (Russell Wong): a young and handsome hacker who works as a security expert in a very important software company, rich, successful and married with a gorgeous blonde. In the other hand, Kevin Mitnick (Skeet Ulrich): a sneaky black-hat hacker with no home, no money, no ethics, no wife, no social life and not even a nickel to make a phone call. Eventually, Mitnick meets Shimomura and feels jealous of his perfect life, unleashing a personal vendetta against him and stealing personal data which, in the wrong hands, could compromise the world's systems security. Then begins a cat-and-mouse game where the righteous Shimomura has to stop the evil Mitnick from starting a kind of digital Armageddon.And that's why this movie is so funny! It's loosely based in the books "Take-Down" by Tsutomu Shimomura and "Cyberpunk" by John Markoff, both of them no more than the authors' point of view for the chase and capture of Kevin Mitnick by the FBI at the end of the 90's. Personally I've followed the Mitnick case with certain interest and read both books as well as Mitnick's "Ghost In The Wires", and I can say that this movie is so far from reality that ends up being comical.This is not a bad movie, but that's all. It's a fictional history where a god guy tries to catch a bad guy, and if you are familiar with the Kevin Mitnick case and/or the "FREE KEVIN" movement, you're going to have a bigger picture and even enjoy the movie much more.

The technologies used and shown in the movie are accurate. This movie is much better then Hackers where ridiculous 3D and CGI are passed off as hacking. As a fellow geek I enjoyed watching this. We all know that Kevin is innocent, so basing your viewing experience on the fact that your watching something based on a true story is absurd. I found myself relating on many levels with Skeet's character, Kevin. The idea's and philosophies correctly portray the ideals of many hackers, even today. Information does belong to the world. This movie gets it right in the sense that it shows the perspectives that most hackers share. This movie is worth owning and is a must have for any geek or information security professional.

Not arguing technical details or realism, I feel what is presented in this movie is an all-too black and white picture of hackers, or "Crackers", as the hero refers to them. Great pains are taken to portray Kevin Mitnick as a temper-prone, reactionary, asocial neurotic, with nuances of sexual dysfunctionality thrown in as well. Whereas, the hero (Tsutomu Shimomura)comes off as being the shiniest star in the sky.I would say this general portrayal is unfair, and nearly propagandistic in its intent. The movie really becomes a base for expounding the moral issues of hacking and 'freedom of information' in a society that survives on security. It is a clear warning, and it does NOT favor hacking or hackers.I am appalled by that, because a more open picture of both sides might have been painted. "Hackers" brought the world to the standards of today, and daily test the security and limits of it... likewise, "programmers" continue to strive for safety, but also encrypt for greed, control, power, and politics. It is not all back and white.Either a hacker OR a programmer are capable of accidentally, or intentionally creating havoc in a real world of banking, traffic lights, airports, and defense systems, although the chances seem less with programmers (unless you know about "The Singularity").All I am saying is that this movie is VERY biased against hackers, it allows them NO redeemable social attributes, and it radically stereotypes them. It is intended to PERSUADE you. THAT, I regard as a THREAT to my own individual freedom of thought, and when you cross that line... alarms go off.BEWARE of this if you haven't seen this movie yet.Did "Big Brother" produce this film? ("Big Brother" is a reference to George Orwell's novel "1984") Regardless, the movie has good detail within a fast-moving and captivating plot.Lastly, NO, I am NOT pro-hacker oriented. Mitnick is clearly a criminal with a long record of convictions dating all the way back to 1981... but, I don't like being told what, or how, to think about a whole class of people.