The Throwaways

Predictable and cliched, with an ample serving of jingoism. If you are into this sort of stuff it's right up your street, if not you might find it laughably similar to a thousand other films.

As you might guess, I'm not on any payroll from the movie makers. Bad acting, bad plot, bad photography, bad cutting and actually, bad picture quality. Use HD cams next time, guys. This must be a re-cut TV-pilot that got caned by obvious reasons.

It's like watching a really bad rerun of A-Team, but without the charm, action or the comparatively amazing FX. If you really need to see how an action/hacker movie should not be done, this is for you. The computer graphics look like they were made on a low-priced early 1990's computer with a Win 95 OS. Shall I go on? Please refrain from making any more movie attempts.

Again I'm astonished by low ratings assigned to a movie here on imdb. More and more, I'm seeking out movies that are not 'blockbusters' or 'important' or 'hard-hitting action', 'cause those movies are fine for what they are, but don't offer much more. I am so often weary of the weight, the baggage that such movies carry. That baggage is tiring and tiresome, and so often can't be made up for with 'style' (which not many of them have, in any case). I'm feeling that people who rate good films so badly can only be satisfied by movies of that type. On to the film. It's fun, it's entertaining, it's silly and light-hearted. It's kinda like a fun heist movie, it moves along smoothly and quickly. The cast is experienced, all good actors. The locale is interesting, and different. It's a fun watch. Ignore the bad reviews. Unless you *want* to watch a blockbuster, or an important movie, or hard-hitting action, dragged down by the weight of all the apparently necessary self-important morality, cookie-cutter characterizations and paint-by-numbers plotting. But don't listen to me - I'm the only woman on the planet who hated Titanic ;>

B movie story with B movie acting, B movie special effects and B movie production values. You should not expect anything of quality. I've seen many worse films and this has nothing to recommend it other than I made it to the end which beats some of the aforementioned worse films. James Caan stands out not for anything he did but simply for being in such a low rent effort. I can only assume he needs the money. He came down to the level of the rest of the film and blended in with the rest. Only watch it if you really can't find anything better.

I was drawn into this film from the beginning when some police turn up at a hacker's (Drew Reynolds - Sam Huntington) secret hideaway and I thought he was just going to get arrested but then he nearly makes a get away on a hidden motorbike. This motorbike chase was very good to watch, because during it, the hacker uses some cool gadgets to disable some of the police cars and almost gets away. And I would have liked to have seen more gadgets like this but unfortunately after getting arrested there is only a little bit of action until the final shootout at the end of the film.

When Drew is arrested the police ask him for some help to stop another hacker who has gained access to an encryption key called Pantheon that he is using to shut down power in Chicago and he can also use it to gain access to anywhere on the internet and beyond.

Drew agrees to help them on one condition, that he chooses his own team to work with.

Like I said at the start there's not much action after the arrest, but we are kept entertained by Drew's witty one liners which reminded me of some Ryan Reynold's jokes. Unfortunately though Drew also uses some complicated technical terms which made me feel lost at times. We are also kept entertained when we see that the team he chooses are a bunch of misfits that don't look likely to succeed.

The final shootout is good because it has some good sniper shots, some funny moments like when one of the team, Fisher (Kevin Dillon) tries to shoot a tank with a bazooka and misses and hits his teammate's (Dmitri - Christian Hillborg) car. And a good fight between another team member called Gloria (Katie McGarth) and a brutal villain, Bes (Amber Jean Rowan.) There is also a countdown until the bad hacker sets off a bomb and it's up to Drew to stop him. This may sound intense but actually turns out to be one of longest countdowns I've seen. And I would have also like to have seen the bad hacker put up more of a fight and look more tough but instead his character looks like a skinny teenager who smokes weed and it's actually Bes who stands out as the main villain.

Overall though I enjoyed most of the film and I'm glad I didn't throwaway the chance to watch it because I was quite lucky to come across this on Netflix when it was quite late one night and I went for it because it's only about 90 minutes long and the trailer looked good. I might also watch it again in a year or two... If I can't find anything else on Netflix.