Joel on Film

We’ve seen our fair share of so-called “screen life” movies, in which the entire story plays out on various television, computer or smart-device screens, and thankfully, LifeHack is an especially solid example of this particular gimmick. Yes, it’s important to reckon with the fact that this is a gimmick, but co-writer/director Ronan Corrigan is adept at handling both the characters and the story in this instance. Yes, the film does occasionally stretch the believability of its utilization of the gimmick, specifically in a slightly over-the-top climax, but the focus here is, thankfully, on the characters themselves.

The story begins by putting the activities of its characters in an instantly justifiable context: Following a brief flash-forward to a video deposition that sets up a flashback, we meet the central foursome of online friends—Kyle (Georgie Farmer), Alex (Yasmin Finney), Sid (Roman Hayeck-Green) and Petey (James Scholz). They initially got together to play an ultra-popular sandbox game, but now the friends work together to catch scammers in the act. If anyone has seen a series of online videos of similar acts, one sort of knows what happens here, but that doesn’t undermine the fun of our introduction to this quartet as they sic policeman on some unsuspecting scammers in India by way of an efficient bit of con artistry.

Maybe the ethics of the whole scenario are a little questionable, but then again, the end does occasionally justify the means, and their quarry in this case was posing as a U.S. Federal officer in a scam involving a tempting ad on an adult-entertainment website. Plus, it involved the legitimate authorities arresting and raiding the offices where the scam was being run, by way of a thoroughly legal tip line and a couple of emails. Surely, the slightly questionable ethics there are nothing compared to the actual justice served.

Corrigan and co-screenwriter Hope Elliott Kemp are smart to begin the story this way, because in the spirit of a legitimate character study, the rest of this story complicates our impressions of these young people, as well as their intentions, without compromising our conclusions of their integrity. This turns out to be a surprisingly complex debate between the type of questionable, but thoroughly comprehensible, ethics that drive them to seek justice and the lengths to which they are willing to go to seek that justice. There is a line, of course, and no matter how bad an actor is on the other side of that line, compromising one’s own soul is a steep price.

Yes, it’s quite impressive how much Corrigan juggles here and how important each of these four performances are to the fabric of this illusion. We learn a bit about each of them, too, such as how Kyle and Petey were the first two members of this friend group, how Kyle’s dad (an IT consultant living in Dubai) keeps putting off visiting or being visited by his son, how Sid’s father is an abusive drunk, and how Alex has been coping with some family drama surrounding substance abuse. How much any of that actually comes into play here is for the viewer to discover, but it’s nice to see that not all of it—because these are people outside the context of this story—really needs to or does.

The plot surrounds their next target, Don Heard (Charlie Creed-Miles), a mega-billionaire clearly modeled after one or two real-world figures, who is a major player in the world of crypto and seems to find it his duty to spread disinformation without any scruples. The scheme will involve finding a way into his crypto wallet to transfer as much of the balance to themselves as possible. The first way into his circle is to involve his daughter Lindsey (Jessica Reynolds), a social media influencer with whom he has a strained and borderline-estranged relationship.

Where all this goes has an appreciable degree of surprise to it, because a lot about Don’s professional and personal lives, as well as the thorny combination of the two, is genuinely unpredictable. Because of that, it’s a little difficult to describe anything after the middle act, when an unexpected ally comes to the aid of the group. It would also be foolish in the extreme to touch upon anything regarding the film’s third act, which involves a literal heist and more tension than anyone could possibly anticipate.

Even when the illusion is stretched during that third act (which, in any case, relies upon a few contrivances—a bit involving a microwave oven, for example—and conveniences—the number of people willing to point their smartphone cameras upward and speak at them quite obviously), nearly all of this is convincing. The denouement of LifeHack clenches it, though, as it smartly does not forget about the real-world consequences of good, but very serious, intentions.

Rating: *** (out of ****)