TAKEDOWN, The Movie Review by Emmanuel Goldstein well, i just got finished reading the script for takedown. while i initially said that i hoped we could influence this thing and that actually *stopping* it from being made wouldn't be the best move, i can honestly say i no longer believe this. this thing is far, far worse than i had ever imagined. i honestly don't know how they ever thought they could get away with such blatantly libelous material. one thing is for sure: if this film is made the way the script reads, kevin will be forever demonized in the eyes of the public. and mostly for things that everyone agrees *never even happened* in the first place! the individuals portrayed in the film are mitnick, shimomura, lewis depayne, julia menapace, levard burns, shimomura's assistant andrew, fbi agents carson and ornellas, kevin's girlfriend karen, sprint technician jim murphy, cellular one's kevin pazaski and todd young, well administrators pei chin and john gilmore, john perry barlow, and netcom admin robert hood. note the absence of new york times reporter john markoff who is mentioned only once in the entire film when the front page story comes out. no mention is made of the major role he played in mitnick's apprehension. all of the following observations are what i consider major departures from reality, or just plain bad dialogue: _________________________________________________________________ as a 12 year old, kevin is portrayed as foul-mouthed and a cheater at pinball. he is imprisoned at age 18 for a year instead of in his mid 20's in real life. when the front page article comes out, kevin is mostly upset that the article is "below the fold." kevin had never heard of shimomura until the feds started to use him to capture hackers, among whom were "the dutchman," who hacked into the cia. kevin needs his friends to constantly tell him he's the best. lewis depayne is put in this role repeatedly. kevin likens his fate to a game of pacman. "there's food. you find it. you eat it. you stay alive. then there's a couple of ghosts chasing you. they find you, you die. that's it." the authors are apparently unaware of the company called okidata since file names are constantly referred to as "oki data" with a space. kevin hacks a radio contest to win a tv for him and depayne. this is done so sloppily that he answers the phone with a winning phrase *and* is told he's the lucky "caller." "Depayne just shakes his head, in full awe." the congressional hearing chairman insults shimomura by implying that he's working with the japanese simply because of his ethnicity. mitnick is portrayed as a racist anti-japanese person who makes pearl harbor allusions and constantly refers to shimomura as japboy. shimomura becomes obsessed with mitnick when he insults julia. "i didn't mean to bring you into this. i should never have brought you into this." shimomura says this to julia and it makes absolutely no sense as he didn't bring her into anything. more shimomura ego-boosting in this exchange with an investigator. "and how do you come to have access to classified material?" "i wrote it." mitnick whistles touch tones to avoid depositing money in payphones. yeah, you heard it right. when depayne tells mitnick that their conversation is being bugged by the feds, mitnick comforts him with this: "i whistled in to PacBell, switched the routing ID. Right now they're listening to the family next door." when the feds kick in depayne's door, they find a picture of mitnick with the words: "Missed me, now you get to kiss me." mitnick is almost caught by a rotweiller while being chased by the feds. mitnick cards plane tickets for depayne to follow shimomura to a presentation where he heckles him: audience member: "what did they get?" shimomura: "that's confidential." depayne: "not anymore." the crowd laughs, shimomura realizes he's a mitnick sympathizer. shimomura: "where's mitnick right now?" depayne "that's confidential." shimomura: "not for long." shimomura sorted ones and zeroes *by hand* to figure out mitnick's trick. no mention whatsoever is made as to why kevin is on the run in the first place. they make it seem as if he hacked shimomura once and then became an instant fugitive. the federal agents are made to look endearing and helpless when targetted by mitnick. mitnick made $10,000 in cell calls in a couple of weeks in seattle according to the bumbling cellular one technicians. mitnick rips off newspapers from vending machines as a course of habit. mitnick gets intimate with his girlfriend by trying to scan with her. mitnick clubs shimomura on the head with the top of a metal garbage can in seattle. "shimomura, dazed, blood flowing freely from a gash above his ear, raises himself to his elbows and watches mitnick disappear, into the night." shimomura has to get nine stitches and a neck brace. probably the most blatant lie of the film as the two had never met. shimomura on the federal agents: "they'll never find him. they're just not... smart." "Electronic Freedom Foundation types" aided in Mitnick's capture. the well management are portrayed as idiotic deadheads who protect unauthorized users. very little detail is given on how shimomura stole julia away from gilmore but gilmore is portrayed as bitter and potentially dangerous. he jeopardizes the investigation to settle the score. a call from the airplane between shimomura and julia as they start losing reception and are facing relationship problems: "I'm losing you. "We're breaking up." heavy stuff the feds worry about mitnick's ability to outmaneuver them in court: "HE won't be on trial. WE will." after almost three and a half years of keeping him *from* a trial, that concern really gave me a laugh. shimomura has to erase files mitnick obtained from his days at los alamos before he "gives it to the world." depayne hacks into a computer to discover shimomura took a plane to raleigh and warns mitnick. in mitnick's apartment "the modem sound is deafening." "the sound of touch tone dialing" is heard on the cellular scanner. shimomura expresses frustration at the slowness of mitnick's capture: "he could be going into medical records, fucking them up. he could be killing people, and we're just standing here." mitnick is seen changing medical records even though he knows that shimomura is moving in on him. judge dixon finds kevin guilty in an apparent flash to the future of "felony theft of intellectual and real property in violation of Section 6 of the Penal Code" as well as violation of the terms of his previous parole. the two sentences, which aren't defined, are to run consecutively. it's pretty damn unlikely, however, that the time would approach anything near what he's already served in real life. incredibly, they try to flip shimomura's image at the end to someone who is trying to be friendly to mitnick: in the courtroom, "shimomura tries - and fails - to catch mitnick's eye." shimomura visits kevin in prison and says he's sorry it had to be like this. as for breaking into his system, he says "good work." mitnick tried to upload shimomura's secrets but was actually uploading to shimomura who used an "fddi concentrator" to fool him into thinking he was connected to another system. "your technique. my implementation," shimomura says. and that's when mitnick says "i admire your skills." but before the two of them get the chance to kiss, the guard ushers kevin away, where he says to shimomura: "i'll be SEEING you... all i need is a dime and a phone... sometimes, if i'm lucky... i don't even need the dime." _________________________________________________________________ both mitnick and his attorney will have a copy of this script. i imagine neither will be too happy with this utter defamation of character. whether or not his lawyer is able to do something about this remains to be seen. we must work on the assumption that he will be unable to stop it. which means it's time to start planning some very definite action of our own. we need targets and we need objectives. emmanuel