In the pulsating and highly original thriller Wardriver, Cole (Dane DeHaan) is a hacker, who drives around Salt Lake City logging on to other people’s wireless networks, locating their business payrolls and draining them into his own secret accounts. He conveniently claims to only steal from banks, not people. Cole may be a professional criminal, but he is a geeky as your company’s IT guy. If you’re not already paranoid about the security of your home router, you will be.
Alarmingly, Cole finds himself entangled with a sequence of extremely dangerous bad guys, each scarier than the last. When he meets a beautiful woman who may or may not be who she says she is, his compulsion to save her puts him at even more risk. You will recognize all the elements of neo-noir here, but with a refreshingly techie flavor.
Dane DeHaan’s performance carries this well-acted film. DeHaan is always good (Kill Your Darlings, LIFE, Oppenheimer), and here his Cole struggles, relying on his wits alone, to keep things in his control. Fittingly for a noir protagonist, Cole recognizes that he is an underdog, but doesn’t grasp just how over-matched he is.
Sasha Calle delivers just the right mix of vulnerability, sexiness and well-masked toughness as the object of Cole’s infatuation. Calle was excellent in In the Summers, an overlooked indie that made my list of Best Movies of 2024.
Mamadou Athie and William Belleau (Killers of the Flower Moon) stand out in supporting roles.
In a complete departure from her brilliant debut film Electrick Children, this time, director Rebecca Thomas works in a conventional genre and keeps the pace sizzling. The highly original techno noir screenplay was written by Daniel Casey.
I screened Wardriver for its world premiere at Cinequest, where it made my Best of Cinequest.