Algorithm (2014) User Reviews

ok script, film school level execution

[ivko · 4/10 · 5 December 2018]

So, as others have pointed out, this is not a very good film. The concept is that a hacker in San Francisco stumbles upon a top secret tracking program built by defense industry contractors and it upends his life. It's not the worst idea for a film; as the Snowden leaks revealed, some of the conspiracy theories out there concerning big brother-ish government surveillance are a little less tinfoil hat than we used to think. But ultimately the film is weighed down by awful acting, stilted dialogue, and abundantly mediocre cinematography, to the point that watching the whole movie becomes more of an endurance test than a pleasurable experience.

The most notable thing about the movie is that the screenwriter took the time to research some coherent information about how hacking and related technologies work, although that said they still manage to get a large number of things wrong or only partially correct. So for instance they reference a security flaw present in many devices manufactured during a certain time range which, unfortunately, is all too real.But then the protagonist mentions that a mystery program was written in a proprietary programming language, which is possible, but very unlikely for quite a few reasons not worth going into here. And then the most important hack is completed by obtaining the username and password of the head of a government agency from just some guy he knows. I can't even begin to tell you how many layers of wrong that is.

But movies rarely get the technical details right, so all of those issues could probably be overlooked if they enabled an interesting story. Unfortunately, they don't. The acting is just so, so bad. And the ever present monotone voice narration is incredibly overused as a lazy exposition tool. Finally, the visual appeal is zero. Every scene feels like it was shot in someone's apartment building under harsh fluorescent lights.

The bottom line is that this just isn't a good movie and I wouldn't recommend wasting your time or money on it.

Slow pace but thoughtful issues

[joglide · 5/10 · 13 June 2017]

In contrast to most reviewers here I found a lot to like in this movie though I assumed it was a very low budget Indie effort by people with some good ideas but virtually no money. So that means the location shots and atmospherics were remarkably good for the zero-costs and even if some people looked at the camera in the cheapo-film on the hoof public shots, mostly they worked, I had a real sense of San F as a darker and scarier place than I have ever seen. What else? The music is really good and adds a lot to the mood. The characterisation and acting was mixed, though I found the NSA/CIA/Homeland torturers quite credible. The main character is a nerd but then hacking geeks are nerds and the closing line of 'A month ago I was a god' says quite a lot - he is a kind of Gordon Gekko of hacking but his morals are all over the place and he wants to have a conscience. Result is that he carries his morals around like a dying albatross around his neck and we find his a jerk. But I found the hacking community believable if not very lovable - rip- off artists who pretend they are super heroes because they can steal and break and enter using their brain power. Overall worth a watch because it wakes you up to American secret police methods.

Authentic, but Bland

[The-Sarkologist · 4/10 · 26 September 2021]

Many of the reviews of this movie seem to start with the phrase 'I like hacker films but ...' and then begins to refer to the fact that this film actually isn't any good. Having now watched it I'll have to agree with many of these reviewers, though there does happen to be a couple of shining aspects to it. Mind you, it is a pretty low budget film that is made up of no-name actors, but the thing is that when you are working with a low budget you probably should be expecting something extraordinary.

The story is about a hacker who is approached by some guy that wants evidence that his wife is cheating on him. While he is doing his research he discovers this program called Shepard which seems to be a tracking program. He decides to dig deeper, and discovers that there is a secretive agency behind it that starts kidnapping people who are involved in the hack.

I guess this film sort of plays on the idea of the security agencies that happen to be keeping records on everything that we happen to be doing online. Like, it isn't as if people don't know about it, but as the film suggests, people really don't care. In fact, the suggestion is that these agencies are no better than the lone hackers that are doing their best to gain access to our systems.

However, the film was pretty bland, and the ending was rather disappointing. Actually, it went beyond disappointing to somewhat confusing. I guess it sort of makes sense, because the more I think about it, the more I realise that going on afterwards probably wouldn't have added all that much to the film as it currently is.

One of the good things though is that they are quite a lot more accurate with computer technology than other films. For instance, they make a comment about how the whole 'zoom and enhance' really doesn't work, at least not the way that it does in many of the other films. It is also interesting some of the discussions about the suitability of passwords. Mind you, in the end, while it does try to be a little more authentic, as a film it doesn't really hold up all that well.

Avoid (Even if you're curious)

[komradekontroll · 1/10 · 29 February 2016]

I discovered this "gem" late one night on youtube and thought I'd give it a try. I'm a fan of hacker related movies, so I thought that there could be something here...

Well from the very first frame I realized this was just going to be a waste of time. I'm not even sure where to start. The acting, the direction, the boring characters and story... I mean I thought Insecurity (2007) had a number of issues, but at least it was enjoyable.

Any argument I've seen for why this movie is good is laughable. "It's not a movie, IT'S A WAY OF LIFE!" K bud..

I could pick it apart piece-by-piece, but trust me when I say this is a waste of time.

Shark Sandwich

[nick_greenland · 2/10 · 23 March 2017]

I somehow came across this gem after stumbling on a youtube posting of Primer, a film that if you have not seen, you really should. GO WATCH PRIMER.

Anyway, Algorithm is a flat, boring one dimensional view into the life of a "hacker". It is a cliché on every level, offering nothing to it's viewer. If I had more time on my hands I would try to hack into Al Gore Ithim, however it's not worth the time. I wish there was a way to get my time back from watching it, let alone my time from warning you from the sheer boredom you will endure. Consider this a PSA.

Absolutely Terrible

[webwiz-244-148031 · 1/10 · 20 February 2015]

I'm a technogeek, computer nerd, and lover of techno thrillers. So I understood the themes and message of this film. But it was done so poorly that I don't know if I'm just disappointed or confused as to why the movie was even released.

About 30 minutes in, I started wondering if it was actually a cheesy parody of a "hacker" film. The dialog is poorly written and delivered with some of the worst acting I've ever seen. I felt like I was watching the product of a high school introductory film class.

The cinematography showed promise with some beautiful shots, but then degraded into very questionable angles and layouts. There's a scene where we get to stare at the back of the head of the main character for an oddly long period of time. I wondered why the director didn't have the cameraman just swing around to his front.

There were almost believable technical aspects of some scenes, but for a "hacker" movie with its overriding theme of "the NSA is watching everything", some of the technology in play should have been focused on more.

In light of the Snowden revelations, and some other stuff that was later revealed to have gone on in the past decade or two, the premise of this film could have resulted in a great product. It's really a shame that the movie was so badly written, poorly acted, and shot so oddly.

The worst hacker movie I have ever had the misfortune to watch.

[Horror_Flick_Fanatic · 1/10 · 22 March 2016]

This film is just plain awful. It has Horrendous acting and a weak storyline with little real world techie details. Amateurish camera work. Plot holes bigger than a Kardashian's loose vayaya. The first 30 minutes is a hacker's nonsense bragging drivel. There doesn't seem to be a honest attempt at delivery a story. The actors perform their dialog as though they were being read from cue cards. My personal feeling is they began improvising a script as they went along instead of having one carefully written before they began writing. As others here have said, you will be better off choosing a different movie to watch. This film should have never been made.

Not worth your time

[khasanbega · 3/10 · 13 March 2016]

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.

A good movie if you give it a chance!

[jamezallan · 7/10 · 8 July 2015]

When I started the movie the crude actions of the FBI agent seemed unnatural and I almost turned it off there, however I love hacking based movies so I thought "no let's give it a chance".

Once I got into the story the acting was not as bad as I initially thought. Now I am no professional in either acting or films but I thought it was not that bad, now the story is a different subject.

The initial beginning of the movie I thought was bland...a man wanting to know about his cheating partner however I could tell there was a larger story coming so I was interested.

The main storyline behind this film, it was both clever and interesting to me. The use of information and technology throughout the movie explaining things to those who may not understand and also the main characters views on life which I consider somewhat accurate in my opinion, were both smart, useful and interesting in understanding the movie.

During the breakout of their friend was one of the highlights of the movie as my heart was pounding when they were almost caught. Afterwards the twist of them being turned in by the friend they went to help them was gut wrenching and somewhat disappointing.

What I mean by disappointing was I saw a different route the movie could have taken which was to fight the government and expose the wrong doings of those supposed to protect and serve.

However I guess that the way the movie went would be more realistic. I look forward to watching any future movies this director makes.

Overall I am glad I came across this movie and I will most likely watch it again.

Worth a watch, but not for entertainment

[proparanoidgroup · 2/10 · 31 May 2017]

As one with experience in working with the film industry, I can give few marks for any of the basic metrics of movie making quality. The last six minutes left me wondering what recreational drug the writer and production team was taking when working those scenes. Most unsatisfactory ending.

As an expert/author in the area of privacy/security/abuse of power issues, the film is an important and useful glimpse into the perils of our electronic society, and how insecure you really are, especially from hackers, and more so from government agencies who exceed their charter.

I especially recommend the film to targeted individuals, activists, non PC types, anyone involved in a large law suit, working for a military contractor, holding a sensitive position within any firm or agency involving secrets, proprietary information, etc. YOU are far more likely to benefit from this movie than the average Joe Citizen. But Joe has much at stake, too.

This film will give you much to think about, with little worry that the technical information presented is inaccurate or invalid for the sake of story telling, as is common with most such works, especially on TV. Heed and take care.

worth viewing

[friedtj · 8/10 · 1 April 2015]

I have never reviewed a movie on IMDb.com ... but leaving a unique review of 2 stars for Algorithm was not acceptable so I had to reply ! I must be part of the 1% hackers who enjoyed the movie as at least remotely realistic, in which human interactions do define technological endeavours, in which the powerful do win against the weak, and in which those who are believed trustful should not be trusted. I believe this movie is one, maybe not universal, vision of hacker world aimed at discovering the underlying basics to technological breakthroughs. I ended up watching Algorithm after a nostalgic review of Hackers and Hackers2 (no relation between both movies), and found Algorithm a rather realistic reminder of what real life might actually be.

Slow-paced hacker movie with terrible editing

[emilgrizell · 13 July 2016]

I haven't seen a lot of movies, let alone hacker movies, but I can safely say that this one is NOT worth your time.

For a start, it's really slow. This film could have easily been shortened down to half an hour without losing anything important, because there are countless of slow pans that feel like they are there to just because they look good and take up time. Also, many scenes could be skipped entirely.

The story's message has a good intention, but is badly delivered, partly because you don't care about the characters, because you don't get to know them. You get bored by watching it. And that's a pity, because it feels like it has the potential to be a good movie, at least if you know something about the hacking stuff they are referring to. Right now it mainly wakes thoughts (and even that it somewhat fails to do, because of the above mentioned reasons), rather than being a enjoyable movie to watch. I have to say that I find the constant voice-over pretty good. Most of the things said feel meaningful and sound credible, and that is what saves the movie.

The cinematography looks like you would expect from a student, with more bokeh than thought going into the shots. It often looks pretty good, though. Unfortunately, the nice shots don't make up for the bad editing and the lack of camera angles in many scenes.

Many cuts are poorly made and makes it harder to follow the already not-so-great story. Also, you can clearly see many mistakes; the one time CGI is used, it's laughably obvious, for example. Another fail is in the very first scene where it looks like they remembered to add an effect halfway through the scene.

The sound editing is the worst I've ever heard. Terrible ADR, awful L-cuts and clumsy and audible switching between different microphones. I also miss music, especially in some unnecessarily long scenes, and when there is music, it's the same feeling throughout the whole movie.

I don't find the acting as bad as many other things in the movie, although it would probably not be considered acceptable in a good movie. I'm not that fussy with actors, though.

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To summarize, this movie is not worth your time, even if you are into hacking movies. It fails to deliver an enjoyable experience due to shortcomings in many areas. However, there is a small chance that you like the pacing and the way they try to deliver a message. Up to you if you want to risk 90 minutes of your life ;)

It has enough suspense

[lifesurfer2002 · 7/10 · 25 November 2020]

And technological details that interest me for most of the duration, but I really don't understand in the ending where the hero's friend betrayed him (he said he had a plan but I have no idea what that is other than he wanted to save his own ass) and and guy from the beginning wanting to hire him. The interrogation which leads to suspect's death is a little bit bordering on the unbelievable. The actors' performance are okay enough for me.

Avoid at all cost!

[webbmakaren · 1/10 · 1 January 2020]

Haha this was so extremely bad. The weak story, the embarrassing acting, the dull filming, all of it is just a waste of time. I'm all about cyber crime movies but this one... My god... This was such a low point. Avoid at all cost and save some valuable time.

Great Movie - For Nerds

[klickonn · 2/10 · 20 July 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.

Utter garbage

[nstyle-41148 · 1/10 · 25 April 2020]

The premise - a hacker uncovering a shadowy military contractor spying on everyone - had a lot of potential. But the cringe-worthy writing, the swiss cheese plot, mediocre acting and the MyFirstFilm directing combined to make this perhaps the worst films I've ever seen. I watched it online and still felt robbed.

The first few minutes started with what seemed like an interesting if slightly toe-curling set up. However it quickly devolved into almost laugh out loud reactions to the tech-speak which sounded exactly how a non-technical person who spent the last 2 minutes flicking through a tech-dictionary thinks tech-speak should sound. I even began wondering whether it was a too subtle satire on the pseudo-tech film genre.

About half-way through it I realised I just didn't care about these people and what they were doing, even to the point where I was almost rooting for the baddies. That was until we got to hear more of them and found them to be equally as unrealistic with equally terrible lines. I stopped watching with a third of it still left.

This is a try-hard film that doesn't actually achieve anywhere near what it sets out to do in any dimension. I can't think of any redeeming features.

i'm sick because of this movie

[high-8-high · 1/10 · 28 April 2020]

I can't image my feeling, this movie made me sick I hadn't any experience of movie reviewing, but this movie Had many conditions that I hate. I saw some movies had one of these conditions, but this movie got them all. - How dare you to claim that is NSA building, Really you mean the NSA headquarter have 5 only employees ? that footage almost made me throw up, you can make story about small, weird, contracted tech company with NSA - :edit: also these something wrong with microphones, you many times the microphones hit by actors and actresses and one of the scenes, these is sound was inserted by wrong, when they sit on the chair in night, then they leave I heard sound of walking on when can say "paved tiles" while they are walking on grass !!!..

Probably the best hacker movie I've ever seen

[asqureshi · 10/10 · 6 April 2016]

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".

spot on! very accurate to the real world!

[greenhouseeric · 10/10 · 8 July 2017]

This movie is the most technically accurate computer science / network security film i have ever seen in my life! Whether you are in the tech field or just interested in it, you will definitely learn A LOT from this movie!

If you don't know anything about computers or are not interested in learning how computer networking really works, then you probably won't enjoy this movie.

Anyone who rated this movie bad, clearly did not understand a single line in this movie. And was clearly looking for a James bond, highly unrealistic action or entertainment film.

To those people, i say... "grow up!" "Read a book for once, or google something real if books are too hard to understand as well!" "Join the real world, and get out of your unrealistic entertainment dependency heads!" "Get a real job that challenges your mind, and stop bitching about things that challenge it for you!"

A Modern Pandora's box. Or a morality tale, for those who are lacking

[alanpgini · 8/10 · 9 July 2016]

This movie would be slow and boring, for those who don't appreciate the cerebral. However the cerebral is a big part of the story. The movie tries to steer you towards liking their good guy. But what the supposed good guy does and what he is, is not good. I sympathized with his plight, and what happened to his friends by their connection to him. But there my sympathy ends. He knew what he did was wrong, and he did it anyway. I have no empathy for people who's very job is to knowingly and illegally harm others, however removed they might feel they are from it. This movie is Pandora's box all over again, but with a technological modern spin. I give it an 8 of 10. It proves once again, that the best movies are still about story, even if technology is a big part of the story. One of those good low budgeters we all like to see, and very rarely do.

Then why technology

[optimistwarrior · 10/10 · 4 October 2016]

Even the story is quite slow but the movie does makes a lot of sense to computer science student, specially interested in doing hacking kind of stuff. The governments are using checking algorithms and hackers being curious or willingly to get into those and this is where a lot of innocent people get into trouble, even a government experiment like this one can cost some people a lot. Exposing things like shepherd can cost a lot of brilliant people their lives or some times mental abnormality due to the torture of governments agents. I like the idea" information is everybody's right and every should know the things they are being indulged in"

Great movie, free to stream on youtube

[Lorax_0 · 8/10 · 31 January 2016]

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.

Great Movie, awful Topic

[foxmasters · 9/10 · 25 February 2021]

A hacker receives an order. He is supposed to hack a private TV network. He succeeds in doing this with the support of his friend Hash. But Hash is kidnapped. Now it is a matter of getting the man out of the custody of the NSA without getting into trouble.

It takes you into his the mind of a Hacker

[drexel_j · 8/10 · 19 April 2020]

Most hacker movie are about action but this goes for basically what goes on in the mind of a hacker with a plot twist