Mark (Shane Brady) and Amy Rumble (Augie Duke) dream about buying their own home but their hopes are scuppered when their sons Ralph (Owen Atlas) and Freddy (Collin Thompson) accidentally provoke cyber-hacker The Chameleon (Chandler Riggs). Stealing $20,000 dollars from the gamily, The Chameleon leaves the family in a precarious situation but they decide to hunt him down and get payback, as they fight to keep their family together.
‘Hacked: A Double Entendre of Rage-Fueled Karma’ is loosely based on real-life events that happened to director, writer and actor Shane Black and producer Emily Zercher. The film is quick to establish that only a small amount of the film is actually ‘true’ and therein lies most of the problems. Plenty of films have been made about hacking so it’s admirable Black tries to do something different here, but the end result is a random fever dream that is as coherent as it is inconsistent.
The schtick of the film seems to be that the entire cast is in on the joke that they’re all playing to camera and frequently breaking the fourth wall. With every line of dialogue delivered with a wink to the camera, it soon becomes tiring and tedious, and you cling on to the hope that a cohesive narrative will emerge at some point. The plot developments play out like a teenage boy who has drunk too much Monster Energy, throwing together random situations and characters (hello Santa!). The aim is to create an absurdist piece of theatre out of a real-life devastating situation but it simply doesn’t land.
Another issue the film has is that the tone is all over the place. One minute we’re watching a comedy, then it’s a drama, then it’s an ultra-violent horror adjacent torture piece, and none of it flows well together. Add to that a completely unsympathetic bunch of characters and there’s not a lot to root for here. When your sympathies end up falling with the hacker, you know the film isn’t really getting across its point. Chandler Riggs does the best he can with lightweight and nonsensical material, and the rest of the cast resort to on-the-nose jokes and over-acting.
‘Hacked: A Double Entendre of Rage-Fueled Karma’ may be best enjoyed after some recreational drugs but as someone who doesn’t do those, I couldn’t really find much to praise about the film. There’s a kernel of a good idea in there but it gets lost in the chaos and honestly, I couldn’t wait for it to end. I’m all for film-makers trying something different but it still needs to connect with the audience and make some semblance of sense, even if that’s within the world it’s portraying. Sadly, this film is a hot mess that I’m not going to be revisiting.
Cast: Owen Atlas, Collin Thompson, Richard Riehle, Chandler Riggs, Katelyn Nacon, Augie Duke, Shane Brady Director: Shane Brady Writer: Shane Brady Certificate: Unrated Duration: 94 mins Released by: S&R Films Release date: 2nd June 2026 (DVD and VOD)
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