Main Cast: Patrick Stewart, Vincent Kartheiser, Brenda Fricker, Bradley Whitford, Matt Craven
Release Year: 1997
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
A criminal genius who has carefully planned the ultimate score runs across an unexpected obstacle -- a 16-year-old computer hacker -- in this youth-oriented action-adventure story. Ozzie Paxton (Vincent Kartheiser) is a teenager with a knack for causing trouble; he's been expelled from the Shady Glen School, an exclusive private academy, for pulling one too many pranks on the faculty. Besides, he prefers to stay home with his computer, where for fun and profit he hacks into the systems of computer game designers, downloads new games before they can go on the market, and burns bootleg CD-ROMs that he can sell to his friends. One day, Ozzie's younger sister Melissa (Katie Stuart) talks him into giving her a lift to Shady Glen, where she still attends; looking for a little revenge, he sneaks into the school and intends to have a little fun with their computer system. As it turns out, Ozzie runs afoul of the school's new security chief, former British Secret Service agent Rafe Bentley (Patrick Stewart), who was hired by Principal Maloney (Brenda Fricker) after Ozzie's most recent bit of computer terrorism. But Bentley is not the friend of the law that he seems to be; several of the wealthiest families in America send their children to Shady Glen, and Bentley has a scheme to kidnap ten of the school's richest children and hold them for a ransom of $650 million. Ozzie is caught in the middle of Bentley's kidnapping plot and must now use his computer skills in order to save the children and put Bentley behind bars. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Annabelle Gurwitch - Helen Paxton; Katie Stuart - Melissa Randall; Michael MacRae - Foster Deroy; Jon Abrahams - K-Dog; Vanessa Morley - Gabby; Callum Keith Rennie - Ollie; Earl Pastko - Capt. Jankel; Jason Schomberg - Marvin; Michael Simms - Col. Duke; David Paul Grove - The Ferret; Jay Brazeau - Eliot; Michael Benyaer - Taxi Driver
Credit
Doug Byggdin - Art Director, Patti Allen - Associate Producer, T. Michael O'Connor - Associate Producer, Andrea Stone - Casting, Derek Baskerville - Costume Designer, Monique Sanchez - Costume Designer, Lee Knippelberg - First Assistant Director, Roger Christian - Director, Robin Russell - Editor, David Saunders - Executive Producer, Richard M. Heller - Executive Producer, Matthew O'Connor - Executive Producer, Anthony Marinelli - Composer (Music Score), Douglas Higgins - Production Designer, Nic Morris - Cinematographer, Floyd Byars - Producer, Robert F. Dudelson - Producer, Michael McGee - Sound/Sound Designer, Jacob Rupp - Stunts Coordinator, Floyd Byars - Screen Story, Chris Black - Screen Story, Alex Sisken - Screen Story, Floyd Byars - Screenwriter
Jay Rathbone,
Chris Findley,
Dougie Meakin,
Joey Molland,
George Cassidy
Formal Connection With:
Fruit Eating Bears
Genres: Rock
Biography
One of the more promising late-era Merseybeat bands, the Masterminds never managed to translate their potential into serious record sales, although one of their members, Joey Molland, was destined for some international success less than a decade hence. Formed in Liverpool even as the big wave of Merseybeat sounds was cresting, the Masterminds consisted of Joey Molland on guitar and vocals, Chris Findley on keyboards, George Cassidy on bass and vocals, and Jay Rathbone on drums. For a time, Dougie Meakin played rhythm guitar and sang in the line-p as well. Molland, at 16, had already played with two earlier bands, the Assassins and the Profiles, when he joined the Masterminds. They had established a successful residency at a Liverpool club called the Blue Angel and lucked out one night when the Rolling Stones, with manager-producer Andrew Loog Oldham along, came to the club after playing a gig at the Empire Theatre and saw the Masterminds doing Bob Dylan songs.
This was in late 1964 when not a lot of British bands were covering Dylan's songs, much less doing it well. The fact that they were a Liverpool band made it even more startling because apart from the Searchers, the city wasn't known as a fertile field for folk-rock impulses to take root. The band was duly signed up to Oldham's fledgling Immediate Records label and they cut "She Belongs to Me," their one and only single, in the spring of 1965.
Despite getting an appearance miming to the single on the British rock & roll television showcase Ready! Steady! Go!, it sank without a trace along with the group's prospects for breaking out of Liverpool. (Curiously enough, the song itself would take on a life of its own at Immediate, as a focus of versions by the Nice and Joey Vine). The group broke up soon after, with Jay Rathbone jumping to the Almost Blues, while Molland, Findley, and Cassidy joined the Fruit Eating Bears, a Liverpool band that got its biggest exposure backing the Merseys, the harmony group formed by Tony Crane and Billy Kinsley -- who had been one half of the Merseybeats -- who enjoyed a huge hit with "Sorrow." Molland later jumped to the Iveys, replacing original lead guitarist Ron Griffiths, and enjoyed three years of international rock stardom in the early '70s after the latter group was re-christened Badfinger.~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
Oswald "Ozzie" Paxton (played by Vincent Kartheiser) initiates a highly illegal hack, and begins pirating a soon-to-be-released game, "Scream II". His download is interrupted when his younger stepsister enters his room without permission. The resulting squabble between them results in their respective parents intervening. In the process, Ozzie's father (a software expert himself) discovers the illicit download. Duggan, his parrot, distributed hateful bites all around.
Forced to take his sister to school as punishment, Ozzie has run-ins with Principal Maloney, his former nemesis (she expelled him some time before, after he destroyed one of the classrooms) and security officer Rafe Bentley (Patrick Stewart). Having accomplished his assigned task, Ozzie stays behind to pull one last prank, but before he can get out of the school, Bentley's crew of "security guards" produce a variety of firearms, including tranquilizer dart guns, which they use to subdue several staff members, then lock down the school. Ozzie's friend Richard (Jon Abrahams), also known as K-Dog, overhears the gunfire on Ozzie's walkie-talkie and rushes to the school.
It turns out that the hostages are all children of wealthy families, and Bentley has long been in the planning stages of a ransom scheme involving their parents' corporations, especially the one employing Ozzie's father, which dismissed him for embezzlement. Ozzie, re-entering the school via a long-disused-and-boarded-up room, attempts to alert his sister to the danger. She doesn't believe him, and he is subsequently chased by one of the gunmen. Using a bunsen burner, a vial of acid, and his ingenuity, he is able to subdue his pursuer. He subsequently begins fighting back, first by setting the boiler to overheat the office, and then by activating the fire sprinklers. Both these tactics wreak havoc with Bentley's computerized security system.
Meanwhile, the police make several attempts to breach the school's perimeter, only to run into automatic gunfire, rocket launchers, and mines. Bentley is careful to avoid causing any fatalities among the police, but warns them that he will not continue to do so if the attacks continue. As a concession, he releases most of the children, but keeps the ten richest (and Ozzie's stepsister, having by this time found out about her relationship to him) and demands a very large ransom for their return, to be paid by the corporation that Ozzie's father works for. He also demands that the man who fired him deliver the ransom, presumably to exact revenge.
Ozzie locates ten of the eleven children and rescues them, with Maloney's assistance, but his sister has been taken by Bentley. He then places an improvised time bomb at the bottom of the school's indoor pool. Finally, he attempts to stop the ransom payment, but finds out too late that the man designated to deliver it was actually Bentley's confederate. Bentley ties him to a chair and leaves with his men, keeping Ozzie's sister as an insurance policy. They intend to escape through the sewer pipes using ATV's.
While Ozzie is struggling to free himself, the bomb explodes, flooding the school's lower levels and neutralizing nearly everyone there; only Maloney, K-Dog (who entered vai a sewer main), Bentley and Ozzie's sister are left standing. Ozzie and K-Dog seize an abandoned ATV and pursue Bentley. They manage to rescue Ozzie's sister, but Bentley escapes with the ransom. However, Ozzie is able to blow the whistle on the man who delivered the money. Through his cell-phone, the police trace him to the CEO of a rival corporation, who masterminded the plot so that the money used for the bidding would be given to the terrorists so he could win a bidding war against the corporation employing Ozzie's father.
Soon afterward, Bentley sees the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel', only to discover that the light leads only one place: a sewage reclamation plant. The money begins to sink as police cars come to arrest him.
