Hacked follows the tried-and-tested formula of the stalker trope with a whole lot of tech stuff thrown in for good measure (half of which seems wildly implausible). The film, though largely overdone and melodramatic, does touch upon a relevant theme not explored enough in mainstream Hindi cinema. This theme is that of the Internet, and how you never really have your privacy once connected to the near-indispensable world wide web.
For a mostly predictable script that leaves many gaps in the narrative (a case in point is when our young-adult hacker, Vivek, decides to use his tech skills to make the protagonist’s life a living hell), it does speak of certain sordid realities in its own overcooked, stylised way. These social realities include the age-old question of why many men take rejection so badly, and why they become obsessive in their quest for unrealistic fantasies.
Hacked also does an okay job of portraying the 19-year-old Vivek in his full range of sociopathy. He begins by clicking photos of Sameera (Hina Khan), a female neighbour and friend, without her knowledge. But it is only after a one-night-stand with her goes awry (she regrets the drunken accident and tells him as much), does his already obsessive behaviour worsen. Whenever the script succeeds in doing a half-decent job, Rohan Shah plays Vivek pretty well. His overall creepiness and warped logic do come off quite believably. Sameera’s on-again/off-again movie-star boyfriend and her long-lost bestie with a perpetually melancholic face are mere caricatures, though. Even her story arcs with the aforementioned men are boring and utterly predictable.
The totally unrealistic aspects of the story relate almost entirely to Vivek’s plan of holding Sameera to ransom with his hacking prowess. First of all, even though Vivek is a rich kid living in swanky apartment complex (he lives with his grandmother while his parents are abroad) there is no way he could afford (I assume he gets a monthly allowance) to rent out a storage space and fit it with all the latest equipment for his illegal snooping. Moreover, how in the hell could he have hacked every camera of every single place Sameera visits? I get how he could have infiltrated her home (installing spy cams, bugging the place, and so on), hacked into her laptop and smartphone.