Hacker 2015

Alex Danyliuk, Callan McAuliffe, grows up in Canada in a family of immigrants that quietly struggles to make ends meet, living on welfare as they try to build a better future. He fills his days online, immersed in games, and later earns money as a “Clicker,” generating traffic to websites to bring in revenue. When he leaves home to attend college in Toronto, Alex moves from offline hustle to a sharper edge of crime, partnering with Sye, Daniel Eric Gold a street-smart hustler who introduces him to the world of black-market trading. They start with lost and stolen credit cards and fake transactions, testing how far they can push the system.

Alex’s first big break comes when he attempts to defraud the International Bank of Canada — the very bank that fired his mom. He persuades the bank’s Head of Security, Zachary Bennett, to overlook his own misdeeds in exchange for fixing their insecure site and computers for free. The scheme is large enough to leak onto the Dark Web, drawing the attention of Zed, Clifton Collins Jr., a mysterious masked figure who leads the Dark Web. The notoriety pushes Alex further into a dangerous circuit, but he soon meets Kira, a young hacker Lorraine Nicholson he is introduced to after Sye uses his laptop to reach her. Kira shows them deeper techniques: printing their own credit cards with a machine and using Bitcoin to move money.

With Kira’s guidance, the trio grows bolder and more confident, though Sye grows wary of Kira’s customers and where the money is really coming from. Kira pushes for relocation to Hong Kong, arguing that places like that are where their skills belong, while Alex insists that Sye should come with them. As a rift grows, a tense deal spirals out of control when one customer fires a gun to end negotiations, forcing the group to flee and relocate to Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, the risk of exposure is constant. They have to track which cards still work and which don’t, because a single expired card or suspicious transaction triggers a “pick up” alert that could bring cops to their door. One night, after a failed transaction on an expired card, they celebrate a birthday night out at a nightclub, where Sye gets into a fight and both he and Alex end up in jail. Kira appears outside the prison and seems to have bailed them out, answering simply with, > “my uncle.” <

As a sign of apology for the trouble, Sye uses an old card to move money the Colombians gave them, which angers Alex and leads him to tell Sye to leave. Alex and Kira begin withdrawing from ATMs across Hong Kong, pulling a staggering total of $2.3 million and leaving behind Dark Web calling cards after every withdrawal. Kira wants to retire, but Alex imagines continuing the scheme, and Zed—alerted by their actions—arranges a face-to-face in an old factory where he sits in a wheelchair with a heavily burned face. Zed explains that failure of the mission would imperil their families, and Alex and Kira accept the dangerous assignment to crash the stock market for a windfall of money.

The plan moves toward the Federal Reserve, where a supposed hit on the Chairman of the Federal Reserve triggers a market crash. The operation, however, begins to unravel as it becomes clear that the assassination was staged by impostors. In a tense escape, Alex is kidnapped and drugged, then held in an abandoned office before a flight to Bangkok; Kira does not show up as promised. A subsequent online check reveals Zed’s arrest and Kira’s death, and Alex is arrested again when a “pickup” call triggers a police raid on his card activity. After two years in jail, he is freed by a Royal Pardon.

On the prison gates, Kira reappears and finally reveals the broader truth: she has been working with the FBI as an agent, part of a deal to catch Zed. With the truth laid bare, Alex and Kira drive away together, standing at the threshold of a new, uncertain future but finally free from the web of deceit that bound them.