Winning an online contest with the prize of dinner with his favorite actress Jill, Nick prepares himself in his hotel room. A man naming himself Chord informs him that Jill cancels the dinner for no reason and sends him hacked live streams on Jill, saying that this would compensate him. Coincidentally Jill is meeting her secret lover Tony at Nick's hotel, so Chord hacks Nick's camera to view their room. When Tony gets suspicious and heads to Nick's room, Chord guides Nick to knock Tom out and get out of the hotel. A French hacker team Triops contacts Nick, thinking he is the notorious hacker Nevada. Confused, Nick ignores them. Chord starts to threaten Nick that he'll hurt Jill if Nick doesn't do what he says. Chord has the unconscious Tony tied as hostage to force Jill to strip, using Nick to relay his commands.
When Triops contacts again revealing their faces, Nick asks them to peek into his laptop and they cut the connection from Chord to Nick. Chord storms in and kidnaps Jill. Nick and Triops searches for Chord and find that Chord is actually Nevada, whom Triops were to help. They get back helping Nick after he threatens to spread their faces to the police. They lead Nick to follow Chord's car which later gets into an accident, with Jill in the trunk. A video feed at Nevada's servers shows that Chord and Nevada are actually two different persons and that Chord tricked Nevada to get his servers and get revenge on Jill. Chord goes to Nick's car and kills him. He then stream a live feed on the tied up up Jill with a time bomb set in the room, which attracts millions of visitors. Chord says he'll stop the bomb if more than fifty percent of the viewers leave the site. The bomb explodes in time as only about ten percents do so.
Chord tells Jill he showed her how the world viewed her. Jill persuaded Chord to make a 'good ending' on it but uses her chance to escape. It is futile as Chord easily recaptures her and ties her again. But then Chord receives a call. It's actually Nevada, still alive and angry at him. Nevada showed that Nick is still alive, so Chord get out of his hideout to check Nick's car. Nevada reveals that he's changed his face to look like Nick, and uses a recording to lure Chord out while he frees Jill and set the place on fire as Chord goes back in. Chord dies in the fire as they walk away.
The story at first looked like it's going to be just another fanatic stalker movie. It then adds in the elements of hackers, blackmail and manipulation into the whole movie, which quite nicely colors it but didn't necessarily revive it from sinking dumbly after a few moments. There is so many illogical and unrealistic things about the technological aspects this movie is presenting, which is quite a joke considering that the hacker tech world is completely logical and realistic to approach. A video camera is hacked to be viewing x-ray and long range focused audio? How can a remote software hack increase the hardware technology like that is completely stupid.
The take on the cinematography using the camera angles on the video feeds and viewing it at the laptop screen is quite interesting at first sight. But it soon find obstacles in screen sizes, supposedly realistic resolution problems and the panning dilemma on the focus from one OS window to another. It kind of feels like the movie betrayed its own style when the plot goes outside any rooms and t gets less view on the multiple windows on screen but more focus on a single camera, even if it's still in a CCTV styled shot. Also, one major problem is the lighting. The movie doesn't have to be so dark lit.
The plot kind of drifts unclearer as the stretched story is abruptly re- thinned when the Triops team just suddenly disconnects with only saying sorry. The twists with separating Chord and Nevada is quite nice that it throws off the assumptions that audiences might form earlier as the Triops appears. But the end twist with Nevada is just plainly confusing, not to mention that it's literally stupid.
The acting is just a so-so overall. We do see Elijah Wood's effort in getting into character surrendering and being manipulated to do wrong on his favorite star. Sasha Grey is a weird call for me to judge, considering that she didn't have to act to be a star, and to shoot nude scenes; but her expressions still fall off the standards.
I say I kind of agree with those voices scoring this movie a 4 out of 10. A recommendation is a definite no. If only the story has itself a more solid bridging between the decent opening and the later stages, I think the movie could be better.
When Triops contacts again revealing their faces, Nick asks them to peek into his laptop and they cut the connection from Chord to Nick. Chord storms in and kidnaps Jill. Nick and Triops searches for Chord and find that Chord is actually Nevada, whom Triops were to help. They get back helping Nick after he threatens to spread their faces to the police. They lead Nick to follow Chord's car which later gets into an accident, with Jill in the trunk. A video feed at Nevada's servers shows that Chord and Nevada are actually two different persons and that Chord tricked Nevada to get his servers and get revenge on Jill. Chord goes to Nick's car and kills him. He then stream a live feed on the tied up up Jill with a time bomb set in the room, which attracts millions of visitors. Chord says he'll stop the bomb if more than fifty percent of the viewers leave the site. The bomb explodes in time as only about ten percents do so.
Chord tells Jill he showed her how the world viewed her. Jill persuaded Chord to make a 'good ending' on it but uses her chance to escape. It is futile as Chord easily recaptures her and ties her again. But then Chord receives a call. It's actually Nevada, still alive and angry at him. Nevada showed that Nick is still alive, so Chord get out of his hideout to check Nick's car. Nevada reveals that he's changed his face to look like Nick, and uses a recording to lure Chord out while he frees Jill and set the place on fire as Chord goes back in. Chord dies in the fire as they walk away.
The story at first looked like it's going to be just another fanatic stalker movie. It then adds in the elements of hackers, blackmail and manipulation into the whole movie, which quite nicely colors it but didn't necessarily revive it from sinking dumbly after a few moments. There is so many illogical and unrealistic things about the technological aspects this movie is presenting, which is quite a joke considering that the hacker tech world is completely logical and realistic to approach. A video camera is hacked to be viewing x-ray and long range focused audio? How can a remote software hack increase the hardware technology like that is completely stupid.
The take on the cinematography using the camera angles on the video feeds and viewing it at the laptop screen is quite interesting at first sight. But it soon find obstacles in screen sizes, supposedly realistic resolution problems and the panning dilemma on the focus from one OS window to another. It kind of feels like the movie betrayed its own style when the plot goes outside any rooms and t gets less view on the multiple windows on screen but more focus on a single camera, even if it's still in a CCTV styled shot. Also, one major problem is the lighting. The movie doesn't have to be so dark lit.
The plot kind of drifts unclearer as the stretched story is abruptly re- thinned when the Triops team just suddenly disconnects with only saying sorry. The twists with separating Chord and Nevada is quite nice that it throws off the assumptions that audiences might form earlier as the Triops appears. But the end twist with Nevada is just plainly confusing, not to mention that it's literally stupid.
The acting is just a so-so overall. We do see Elijah Wood's effort in getting into character surrendering and being manipulated to do wrong on his favorite star. Sasha Grey is a weird call for me to judge, considering that she didn't have to act to be a star, and to shoot nude scenes; but her expressions still fall off the standards.
I say I kind of agree with those voices scoring this movie a 4 out of 10. A recommendation is a definite no. If only the story has itself a more solid bridging between the decent opening and the later stages, I think the movie could be better.