Prime Risk

I can only imagine what the casting director and writer were thinking when they selected the female role for this classic ATM hacking movie. I haven't seen this film since it first came out and in all those years no actor has surpassed the female engineer in nails-on-the-blackboard cringeworthy insta-hatred than her performance in this dog of a movie. From the moment she opens her mouth to final credit, every onscreen moment made my skin crawl. Any actor who appeared in any film is more likable.

Zero stars for the female lead. The rest of this turkey was worth a star at most.

This movie excels in its class. Money can't buy everything, but it can usually buy a better film. Despite the handicap of a low budget, this one is entertaining, well paced, well cut, and surprisingly free of the absurd movements similar low budget movies usually end up with.

The flying sequences work a hundred times better than those in Time Chasers, another 80s movie which looked and sounded a lot like Prime Risk but ended up being a lot sillier. Hey it's an 80s movie, scenes of sneaking around and hinging crucial plot points on pushing people into the back of various vehicles were mandatory back then.

Most interesting of all was that the hacker elements were actually technically feasible for once. The main character learns to clone ATM cards, and in the process comes across a bigger operation run by the commies, which almost takes out the U.S. banking system. The main character understands circuit level functioning of the Z80 processor and know her way around a frequency counter. Oh yeah, did I mention the hacker in this movie is a woman? The male characters were made amazingly one-dimensional so that she could steamroll over them, but still, this was quite a role for the time, especially compared to the whiny 'What's a moddemmm?' girl in War Games.

Yeah there are some small goofs here and there, and the plot falls back on some well-worn Hollywood conceits.. but still.. It's worth watching.. and there is a TTY machine in the opening credits!.. and many, many, many reel-to-reel computer tapes!

I thought about making a contribution to the "goofs" section of this movie. However, I wasn't willing to use up a week's vacation time from work in order to compile the list of mistakes. The only people who could like this movie are those who enjoy films which are so awful, they end up being somewhat entertaining and funny.

I would attempt to go into the plot of "Prime Risk" but it is so ridiculous, I would actually be embarrassed having to type it out. This film is no "WarGames" and its ignorance about anything remotely technical is staggering. Stay away from this one because it's a prime risk to your mental well-being.

Although as another comment stated it is no "War Games" it still has a good story and the action moves along at a good pace. The cast other than Keenan Wynn is not well known but they are capable and believable in their roles. I have seen much worse from well known actors and actresses in highly financed movies. A bit dated now it still works well. The locations, music,and direction help it. Since this is not available on VHS or DVD you will have to rent it or catch it on Cable TV when it comes on occasionally. You should enjoy it if you like computer conspiracy movies like "The Net", "Anti-Trust", "Sneakers", "Hackers", and "Swordfish".

This movie is a poor man's WarGames and isn't that bad, if you have nothing better to watch and you have no expectations. It has local appeal for me as it was filmed in Leesburg and Fairfax, VA. Lee Montgomery was an annoying child actor (in Ben and Burnt Offerings) and in this movie, he's an annoying 20-something actor. Next up: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun with Helen Hunt (another former child actor)....and then into oblivion!