23 (1998)
The movie's plot is based on the true story of a group of young computer hackers from Hannover, Germany. In the late 1980s the orphaned Karl Koch invests his heritage in a flat and a home computer. At first he dials up to bulletin boards to discuss conspiracy theories inspired by his favorite novel, R.A. Wilson's "Illuminatus", but soon he and his friend David start breaking into government and military computers. Pepe, one of Karl's rather criminal acquaintances senses that there is money in computer cracking - he travels to east Berlin and tries to contact the KGB.
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Redundant and unnecessary.
Admirable film.
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Films dealing with real events in the past and focusing on a non-general subject should find a specific form or approach - for the sake of wider understanding and praise. In 23, the story begins auspiciously, but then the pace abates, and many scenes and characters have little meaning for the story development - or they have a role, but the viewers obtain no satisfactory clarification. The activities of law enforcement are almost not depicted at all. True, the leading performances are realistic and good (particularly August Diehl as Karl Koch), and the moods and style of the 80ies have been caught, but the run of events and the ending did not meet my expectations in full.Well, this story has its interesting angles at present as most of people in the 1980ies had no PC or intranet, but it is not on the level of e.g. Who Am I – Kein System ist sicher, dealing with hackers as well.
A well researched accurate but still fast-paced movie.This movie is of some significance to the history of computer hacking. Karl Koch may have been the loonie the movie presents, and I'm not sure he invented the concept of a Trojan, but the depiction of BBS/hacking/phreaking in the late eighties is nice and nostalgic.The acting really works, very believable. Also reminiscent of cold war madness and fears. The "illuminatus" aspect is a bit of a sideshow, maybe true to what really happened, but it's not so certain. Who knows what really went on between these crazy Germans?...
This is one very dragging along piece of film. It clearly reconstructs the youth of Hagbard, a young German hacker in the eighties. This film reminds me of so much of my own youth, and August Diehl's (Karl Koch) acting is perfect, that me and my wife now had to see it for the third time.Read Clifford Stoll's book "The Cockoo's Egg. Inside the World of Computer Espionage" to see the movie from the American view. You will understand some scenes better, for example where the number salad comes from on the computer screen in the phone booth.
What an awesome year the German movie scene has been having! And "23" was part of it... definitely one of the coolest (yet most serious) German movies in the last couple of years. While it still sacrifices some realism for the sake of suspense, it's probably one of the most realistic "hacker movies" ever made. I grew up with the same computing stuff Karl Koch uses in the movie, so I loved it. Yay!