While not very common, there have been a few occasions in recent years where people have taken an awful personal experience and utilised the trauma for cinema. Starring Jerry as Himself saw someone from the Asian American community exploited through a series of phone calls, with the voice on the other end instructing the elderly target to withdraw a vast amount of money to “prove” he wasn’t involved in illicit activities — and he did. As the title suggests, the victim plays himself in the movie, recreating the events that happened to him as a way of raising public awareness. It’s not only an impressive endeavour from director Law Chen, it’s also a noble act from the titular Jerry. Also, as the title suggests, Hacked: A Double Entendre of Rage Fueled Karma takes a similar criminal victimhood but heads in a vastly different direction.
Written and directed by Shane Brady (Breathing Happy), Hacked shows both how the theft happened, preventing him and his wife from buying a house together, and how it becomes an act of true wish fulfilment for anyone who has suffered similar criminality. I count myself among them, so this element was particularly cathartic; knowing how I felt when it happened to me, I cannot imagine how good it must feel for Brady to put Hacked out into the world.
Alongside its near‑endless intertitles and voiceover narration from Brady explaining where it diverges from reality, there are also three characters who act as vehicles for both comedy and commentary. That is the most immediate and striking aspect of Brady’s movie – the sense of humour, which will divide audiences between those who despise its dayglo YouTube shitpost stylings and those who delight in them. Brady openly and flagrantly plays with reality, not only breaking the fourth wall but going as far as recasting characters for a joke, one of which provides an inspired twist in the final few minutes. The meta‑playfulness also serves to give the crime a face rather than the typical cruel anonymity of reality, and while there’s value in its documentation, Hacked functions primarily as wish fulfilment.
Knowing how I felt when it happened to me, I cannot imagine how good it must feel for Brady to put Hacked out into the world.
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The central players are the criminal in question, who goes by the moniker “The Chameleon” (Chandler Riggs), and Brady’s sons, Ralph (Owen Atlas) and Freddy (Colin Thompson). These idiot brothers make skits operating somewhere between YouTube comedy and Robot Chicken, a truly bizarre series of sketches that possess a level of Wakaliwoodian DIY glee. Mileage will vary as to whether or not you find them funny – yet the invention is undeniable; likewise, their devil‑may‑care abandon makes the pair a force of nature. The Chameleon – the best way I can describe him is as the human embodiment of 4Chan – and through all of the movie’s happenings, it is clear that Riggs is delighting in playing such a repugnant little shit. And while all three of them and their exploits are intentionally annoying, they are well‑observed pieces that characterise the trauma and break up the, admittedly thin, main narrative.
Where it may lose some people is the point that Hacked becomes wish fulfilment. Now, how to describe this without sounding like a kid who ingested their body weight in sugar? We have an estate agent and banker who are exaggerated to an extreme degree; two very young CIA agents; an off‑season Santa Claus (Richard Riehle) with a magic cane; Mallcore band Underoath; endless comedic torture played for laughs; and butts being used as a spacious storage cavity. It’s here where it truly throws caution and plot to the wind and commits fully to the idea that this movie exists purely for Shane Brady and his wife to feel better about what happened to them after having $20,000 stolen. In other words, it goes fully chaotic.
While chaos is the overriding flavour of Hacked: A Double Entendre of Rage Fueled Karma, it also serves a more important function. In that opening act, it depicts just how cruel a country America can be. When my money was stolen, the bank refunded me within a few days, whereas here, the entire system is cruelly pro‑corporation. The subtext to all this rampant silliness is a sense of terrifying powerlessness, and corruption passed off as the most normal thing. The fight the couple had to go through is truly overwhelming, and sure, visit for the goofy sense of humour, but let’s not forget why we are here — it’s like the age‑old internet gag: Breaking Bad in the UK would be one episode long as we have the NHS, and in America it’s an ugly, barbaric and chaotic five‑season descent to hell.
Hacked: A Double Entendre of Rage Fueled Karma is out now Digital Platforms (USA)
