Algorithm (2014)

I actually took a leap of faith when I decided to watch this film even after noticing a very low IMDb rating. That was worth it. Gone are the days of creating conventional out-of-the-world and unrealistic thriller movies. That is the job of a director and writer: you don't take your audience to some fantasy world in order to give them superficial, meaningless entertainment only. A good writer brings his audience closer to reality while engaging and educating them at the same time. Dialogues in the film, especially the thoughts of Will narrated during the film, were....... sublime. Another factor is: ending a film which is always the trickiest part. THAT is where the director (who is also the writer) proved himself brilliant. Therefore, I would say, "Excellent job, Jonathan and Stu. Looking forward to watching more movies by you guys".

I'm giving this movie 3 stars because of numerous things going wrong in it both plot and acting wise.First, The acting is pretty poor. The interrogation scene is as realistic as if it was put together by some high school drama class. The way the protagonists interact with each other is rather fake in a very obvious way. In the part where he runs away with the car the managing guy ain't even mad, like not concerned at all. Plot wise: So many things are wrong: The guy is inside a CTO of the data mining company, yet he hires a random street hacker for debunking his wife's cheating, and moreover he falls about the part where he clicks a link and all his information is gone. Really? The scenes from doing some operation to some other one go without much explanation, and in these cases one either goes into details or just non technically explains it. In the movie they explain for a bit, than everything major goes like nothing happened.

I loved this, it's smart, well shot and best of all is free to stream on youtube. You don't lose anything by giving it ago and if you liked it you can head to the films site and throw the filmmakers a deserving donation, or not, your choice. Sure some of the acting isn't the best and there are a few weird shot choices but these are minor things for a movie that on the whole is very engaging and watchable. Anyone who says the hacking themes and dialogue is done poorly don't know what they're talking about, the film is endorsed by Steve Wozniak and it's miles better than every Hollywood portrayal of hacking. It reminded me of a lower key Mr.Robot without all the pilfering from a certain Brad Pitt movie. There's also a recent German hacking movie called Who Am I that obviously had a bigger budget but isn't as good or believable as this. From what I can see this was somewhat ahead of the curve too, coming out in 2014.

This is a great example of a movie that will interest a certain type of person. Make a movie about surfing and even though its garbage many surfers will love it. If you're a hardcore nerd, conspiracy theorist or just anti-establishment then Algorithm will probably appeal to you. Everyone else, that is 99% of viewers, should pass.As a narrated film we have to endure the lead actor's endless rambling thoughts throughout, on top of that we get some 'Hacker's Principles' - oooh they've stumbled upon something big, now they must find out what it is and expose the authorities for the bad guys they are.As the movie progresses it becomes ridiculously implausible with miscast characters. We're supposed to believe a top-secret agency working for the government has no security with a sole receptionist sitting at a table typing on a laptop. Of course anyone can walk in - or out for that matter.The only saving grace for this film is the character Decimate who adds some humor (and a second star to my review), otherwise its as bland as you can get. At the end to call it an anti-climax is an understatement, the synopsis says our man is "thrust into a revolution", whoever wrote that should be sued for misinformation.In fact its hard to think of a movie that accomplishes less than Algorithm, but then again after watching some may beef-up their passwords so all is not lost.