An anonymous reader writes:
A flashy portrait of rebel “hacktivists” and their anarchist accomplices that opts for superficial, unconvincing glorification over in-depth analysis.
Weev and his talking-head comrades spend copious time preaching about the horrific perils of America’s current “surveillance state,” and how they’re combating the powers-that-be through distribution of vital information. Yet The Hacker Wars’ depiction of these high-tech rebels reveals them to be, first and foremost, grating narcissists more concerned with their own celebrity than with any larger cause. That’s especially true of Weev, a self-proclaimed “troll” (i.e., an online person who stirs the pot for its own sake), who says his behavior is akin to that of Jesus and who gleefully sells himself as an obnoxious and antagonistic cretin, never more assertively then when he tells an Esquire reporter that, in World War II, “the Jews were the criminal people in Germany—they did have something coming to them.” In the face of such look-at-me ugliness, the film’s attempts to bend over backwards casting Weev and his self-involved hacking brethren as selfless altruists rings thoroughly and laughably false–and the fact that another oft-heard interviewee, Joe “Subverzo” Fionda, has parlayed his notoriety into an acting gig on “Boardwalk Empire” merely furthers the impression that these men and women are primarily interested not in the greater good, but in themselves.
