An alright German Netflix film about the nerdy Benjamin who meets a group of hackers. Competing with other hacker groups, they name themselves “Clay”. In the same competition their “projects” become more and more daring.
Even though the film is about a subject which changes rapidly, it does not feel very dated. Here and there it is a bit ‘easy’. Just as if you can hack a building’s network from a nearby switch-point and manipulate in which offices the lights are turned on and off. Of course, such a scene is just to set a tone.
What the creators did do well is that they made the actual hacking and communication on the “dark web” into scenes with people in situations. So when two hackers exchange information, this happens in a dreamy scene on a subway for example. This prevents the techniques that they use from being outdated too rapidly.
But of course there also are some techniques here and I am sure some whizkid will be a better judge than myself to tell if these make sense a lot.
There is an actor that I recognised from “Dark“. Here and there the film gives me a “Dark” feel in ways of acting and story-telling and indeed, both the director Odar and fellow script writer Jantje Friese are also the creators of “Dark”. The series are significantly better than this film though, so who knows what this duo can make in the future!
As I said, “Who Am I” is a descent Netflix film.
