SPOILER-FREE PLOT SUMMARY
When four friends from different parts of the world get together to play video games online, they stumble upon a shared disdain for corrupt businesses. Usually they go after spam callers but, when they see tech billionaire Don Heard (played by Charlie Creed-Miles) bragging on a podcast about how he owns millions in cryptocurrency, they realize they have the skills to go after him by way of his estranged daughter. The plan is masterminded by Kyle (Georgie Farmer) and, if Alex (Yasmin Finney) can make contact, Sid (Roman Hayeck-Green) can handle coding and Petey (James Scholz) can uncover the necessary passwords and data, they can steal all $20+ million without him knowing. The team of four gets a too little cavalier in their success, however, and that lets just enough air into their otherwise airtight plan to spin things out of control.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Shooting a movie in a screenlife style is not easy. Sure, there are compelling examples such as SEARCHING and HOST but most projects end up being laughable or boring because they can’t maintain the novelty of the creative intrigue early on.
Thankfully, LIFEHACK succeeds where so many fail.
Unlike most films shot with this style, everyone in the cast is great. They’re each believable and, while each actor has a resume of varying degrees, the audience is (basically) seeing fresh faces which, in turn, allows the brain to believe it’s truly watching someone’s screen and not actors playing a role. And, let’s face it, that’s half the battle.
LIFEHACK is directed well. Ronan Corrigan gets the most of his actors, the most of out of the plot and the most out of the delivery. The audience can feel Scholz’s apprehension along the way, you truly wonder how it’s all going to end and the novelty of the style never wares off thanks to the intensity and momentum packed into every scene.
As with any movie like this, you have to be somewhat tech-savvy to truly get on board but, in fairness, computer illiterates probably aren’t flocking to theaters in order to see this anyway. It would’ve been nice for the filmmakers and studio to get it a rating — it’s officially listed by the MPAA as NR — and it’s not for everyone but, LIFEHACK is the new bar every future screenlife movie will aspire to be like.
JKG SCORE: 7.0
Untitled Film Project 