Open Windows

The night of the battle of the hackers!

I have been longing to watch this film since it was out, only now it had happened. There are not many hacking film that could satisfy thoroughly. Well, I haven't found as impressive as the recent 'Who Am I'. This film was more like partially a found-footage type. Everything was from webcams and phone cams. Not exactly truthful to the reality. Even people with basic knowledge about computers would know that. But entertainment was there. I enjoyed it, mainly because of the speed and being an edgy.

Well, a contest winner is waiting in his hotel room for his dinner date with a celebrity in the later night. While he was updating his blog, someone hacks his computer and gives more contents for the blog than he had thought of. But soon it all plays out differently. Now he's the hacker's puppet, and must follow everything he says or the consequences would be serious. How far it all goes and how it all ends are the remaining story to tell us.

As I said not the best in this theme, but watchable film. Everything was a one night event. Slowly started and then picked up the pace before ending on a high. The end was not good, the twist. At least that's how I felt. Should have been better, yet acceptable. Elijah was good. I just checked it out after seeing his nice act in his latest Netflix film. The rest of the cast was fine too. A Spanish film in English language. Soon I'm going to check out the 'Colossal' from this same director. So it is a good time pass film and you might enjoy it as I did.

6/10

Real-time hacker film that is all style no substance.

There were so many times I was shaking my head at the sheer stupidity of this film. The premise is thin, the acting is mostly weak. There are some kind of cool visuals, but they don't make up for the many, many flaws. Even the usually solid Elijah Wood seems to be coasting. Real-time can be exciting, and I get that the style the film makers were going for, but your film still needs to work even if it didn't have the gimmick. This one does not.

4/10

Innovative and interesting to a point, but convoluted and ultimately unsatisfying

Elijah Wood stars as a geeky fan of an actress (Sasha Grey) who accepts an opportunity to spy on her via his laptop when he is swiftly pulled into a deadly cat-and-mouse with a sinister hacker.

Written & directed by Nacho Vigalondo, "Open Windows" (2010) is a crime thriller revolving around computer hacking. I give credit to Vigalondo for the incredible skills it would take to conceive this story and put the film together, but it’s annoyingly complex with some “Why sure!” plot turns. Yet Wood works well as the protagonist and the alluring Grey has looks that kill.

The movie runs 1 hour, 40 minutes, and was shot in Madrid, Spain, and Spiderwood Studios, Austin, Texas.

GRADE: C

The problems posed by the authors of this film are understandable. This is the openness of society. We are all under the hood. And no one will be able to hide from Big Brother’s field of vision, even if we just sit at home and eat scrambled eggs with bacon. But now there are many decentralized applications such as Utopia p2p, which can save data security. I don’t understand why they say little about it?

It's up to Frodo Baggins to save pornstar Sasha Grey!

I didn't realise it was like a found footage film (was bored in most of the film).

But it gets the extra star for that surprising twist!

Plus it featured Elijah Wood from Lord of the Rings and former adult star Sasha Grey in what I assume is her first main role in a mainstream film. In other words, I'm leaving the three stars as it is.