Caçada Virtual

First of all, let's clear up some common misconceptions.

This film isn't "Hackers 2". You will find no CGI or parachute pants here. This film is about the capture of the notorious computer criminal Kevin Mitnick who used his technical skills and ability to influence people to gain access to things he really shouldn't have been able to access.

The thing that bothers me most about this film is the computer virus that Shimo wrote. I doubt that he did, and this makes Mmitnick seem worse by stealing it. The AI doesn't exist to put that virus around now, and it didn't 3 years ago.

The film in itself is a work of genius. This is the only realistic hacker film i have ever seen. Maybe because it was based on a true story and to put spinning DNA molecules on the computer screen instead of C++ would be a load of bollocks.

The acting is great; the pace of the movie is quick, especially in the part when the FBI almost captures Mitnick for the second time. The portrayal of the FBI in this film isn't very good, when they apprehended Mitnick, they didn't go in with 20 SWAT teams!

Kudos to Ulrich for his part as Kevin Mitnick, but as for Wong, I'm very surprised, where's the glasses and the geekyness? I know where, it got lost in the writing process, to make hackers look geeky and security experts look 'ard and sexy. In actual fact, security experts are just crackers in business suits. Kevin Mitnick did no damage, but they chase after him like he mass murdered a few police departments. I suppose they can't be totally realistic, and then the film would be an hour and a half of typing, with 30 minutes of chases and arrest.

I'm just glad there were no parachute pants ^_^

Without going deep into the the story I can say that if you want to know about the real world under your computer and the privacy that never been out there you're In the right place. The movie Takedown will show you a small piece of hacking in the past and maybe the name "history of hacking" can be correct too.

you can find some of the items from the movie in the spy-shops around so in my opinion just for the knowledge the movie must be seen. In the movie there are some point who are too stuck ,and some time there is no point for long focus in one position. I can see by the movie the vision of the creator ,and he did understand the story and the "How" not like many times in movies without any contact to the reality ,however he failed in focusing too much on the technology and mess the option to show how really hacker feel against and from the authorities.

Enjoy

From everything that I heard about the original script (which was "obtained" under mysterious circumstances and leaked to the world before shooting started), I was expecting this movie to be really, really awful. I was pleasantly surprised to see that either Miramax, the writers, and/or the producers took some of the hacker community's complaints seriously, and adjusted the script accordingly. The final script that was filmed is certainly more even-handed and fair to Kevin Mitnick than Shimomura and Markoff's horrible book "Takedown" was (for a much better treatment of the Kevin Mitnick story, read Jonathan Littman's 1996 book "The Fugitive Game"), and we should be grateful that this film didn't end up being the hatchet-job on Kevin that we all thought it was going to be.

I was glad to see that the "trashcan cover scene", for example, didn't make the final cut, but a little disappointed that we weren't shown how large of a role that John Markoff played during Shimo's "manhunt" for Kevin, and then afterward; according to their own book, Markoff was present for many of the events that took place in North Carolina, and should have at least been shown in the scenes at the cell site alongside Shimo, Julia and the FBI agents.

They also could have done more with the "Lance" character, who represented a real hacker calling himself "Agent Steal" that was working for the FBI, and who figured prominently in the arrest and conviction of another hacker named Kevin Poulsen. (Poulsen's story, done properly, would make for a great movie too, but I digress..) Another no-brainer, slam-dunk scene that should have been in the movie, but wasn't for some reason, was Kevin and Shimo's one and only face to face meeting, in a North Carolina courtroom shortly after his arrest, where Kevin uttered his now famous line "I respect your skills" to Shimo.

I mean, it's no "Saving Private Ryan" or "Godfather Part II", but it isn't bad, either; in fact, it is a much more realistic and enjoyable movie than "Hackers" or "Sneakers" (to its credit, "Hackers" did have the lovely Angelina Jolie going for it), though not as much fun as "War Games", which is truly the "Citizen Kane" of hacker movies, or "Pump Up The Volume", which was more of a hacker movie than people realize, even though the "hacking" is done with a pirate radio station instead of a computer.

As others have already recommended here, go find a copy of "Freedom Downtime", the excellent documentary about Kevin that was produced by Emmanuel Goldstein and the staff of 2600 Magazine, you won't be disappointed.

Takedown is the story of Kevin Mitnick and Tsutomu Shimamura's effort to bring him down.

Whatever the accuracies of the story (and considering the egos involved, I guess we'll never know), this is a pretty riveting tale of an underground hacker playing and defeating the system. Which is all you could ever ask for in a movie. :-)

Johnny Depp lookalike Skeet Ulrich, Russell Wong, Donal Logue, Cara Buono, Amanda Peet and Angela Featherstone make this low budget movie worth while.

Whether or not the real Kevin Mitnick is a nice fellow or what he did was totally legal doesn't detract much from this ripping yarn. The production values are ok (but what would you expect from a guy who spends most of his time sitting behind a monitor in a small room?), however, the concept makes it more than worth while. Especially the "social engineering" segments are cool. Not to be missed if you're at all interested in movies about sub-cultures and the guerilla mentality.

Historical accuracy: 3 Acting: 6 Camera work: 4 Editing: 5 Budget: 4 Story: 6 Theme: 5 Pure entertainment factor: 6 Video quality: 5 Special effects: NA Pacing: 6 Suspension of disbelief: 3 Non-cringe factor: 5 Lack of flashbacks: 10

It's not a good movie as such. It's engaging enough with decent acting and a plot that always advances, but it's messy and cheap movie making. Firstly, I have read Mitnick's book and watched the doc. The doc had some weird scenes and was dirt cheap, but overall a good watch and the audiobook was very fun.

This is not really what happened. This is a story from a point of view of a guy who claims he caught him. He didn't of course. And while watching the movie it will be quite clear that it's nearly fully fictional. The super hacker, who is here better than Mitnick, can do no wrong. He has a hot horny blonde girlfriend, mocks political figures openly, works with FBI, has his own company it seems. He's like a superhero of sorts and Mitnick is this weird criminal hacker. A loner who was forced to leave his girlfriend as FBI was after him. His girlfriend starts dating his best friend instead. In a dating scene he mocks the woman he asked out. He acts weird and creepily and overall the great danger he presents is because he steals this super powerful program from the guy who is now chasing him. Apparently it can hack into ANY system whatsoever. FBI, airports, hospitals. Anything. Obviously this movie is nearly pure fiction and a narcissistic product.

Actually, the best scenes are the ones where we experience realistic events like Mitnick tricking his way into companies, hacking a phone to make free calls, talking about the morals of hacking, hacking the people chasing him, being easily offended. But largely the movie tries to be over the top. The camera work is shoddy and rushed, the hacking scenes cringe. Overall the plot is confusing. The guy chasing him somehow always tracks him down yet we never clearly understand how. And many scenes are plastered in. There is clearly a script and plot here yet the movie is recut by someone besides the director because much of it makes no sense with scenes just appearing and explaining very little.

It's actually watchable and semi-enjoyable. It's not boring as such and I guess one could watch it. But it looks very cheap, the plot is nonsense, and the editing makes it a giant mess. I feel like there is a great story here that could be made. Just focus on the small hacking stuff and social engineering. Keep it realistic. This is why I think some people enjoyed it enough as you could imagine how it could have been good. It's not, but at least it's not dull. There are not many hacker movies out there and most are quite horrible. This at least is perplexingly not awful. Which is something I guess.