There’s something inherently fascinating about the screen life genre, even when it doesn’t fully stick the landing. Films like Searching and Unfriended showed how effective the format can be for horror and thrillers, mostly because they weaponize the intimacy of technology. Everything feels immediate when it’s happening through texts, FaceTimes, browser tabs, and frantic typing. They’re also usually low risk films financially, since so much of the production exists on screens instead of elaborate sets, making them ideal playgrounds for experimentation. Last year, Ben McKenzie tried his hand at it with Bloat, which mostly came and went without much attention, but still had some decent ideas buried inside it.

Life Hack takes the same format and pivots into crime thriller territory, following a group of teenagers who spend their time hacking predatory online scammers before stumbling into something much larger involving a crypto wallet connected to an ambiguously wealthy businessman and his influencer daughter, whose entire existence seems curated for social media. Naturally, things spiral. What starts as a clever digital heist slowly transforms into a survival game where the group realizes they may not be the smartest people in the room after all. The influencer eventually flips the entire dynamic on them, forcing the crew into a much bigger scheme with much higher stakes.

What surprised me most is how well the pacing works. Screen life films can sometimes feel repetitive because visually, there’s only so much you can do with windows opening and notifications popping up, but Life Hack keeps moving at a strong clip. It understands the strengths of the format and uses them effectively. The tension escalates naturally, and there’s an energy to the constant online communication that keeps the film engaging even when the story occasionally stretches believability.

The biggest weakness comes from the characters themselves. Georgie Farmer, who some people may recognize as Ajax from Wednesday, takes the lead role here, but the character is honestly pretty hard to like. He’s arrogant, dismissive, and so convinced he’s the smartest person in every conversation that it becomes frustrating watching him bulldoze everyone around him. The film opens with an interesting framing device showing where he ultimately ends up before flashing back to explain how things unraveled, but by the end, it never really answers what happens to the rest of the friend group, nor does it seem terribly interested in doing so. Two of the three supporting friends barely register as actual characters, while the third mostly exists to remind everyone he can’t afford Stanford. There’s not enough development there to make the emotional beats land as strongly as they should.

As a blind film critic, this was admittedly a slightly muted experience without audio description. The entire gimmick of the genre relies heavily on visual information spread across screens, messages, and tiny background details that I know I missed. At the same time, the sound design almost worked too well. The endless dings, notification sounds, and message alerts coming from phones and laptops throughout the movie repeatedly made me think my own phone was going off. I probably checked it more during this movie than I have during most actual emergencies.

I still don’t think anything in this genre has topped Searching for me personally, but Life Hack proves there’s still room to evolve the format beyond horror. One day, the right filmmaker is going to take the screen life concept and make something truly unforgettable instead of simply making something efficient and marketable. This may not be that breakthrough, but it’s still a pretty solid time whether you catch it in theaters or eventually stream it at home.

If I could offer you one actual life hack, it would be to pretend this is secretly a prequel to the Ocean’s franchise, and Farmer is playing a young Danny Ocean getting his feet wet, before working his way up to the excellent Soderbergh trilogy (and the underrated spinoff). Or, if you’re old school, I guess the original, though it takes a larger leap to imagine Frank Sinatra sitting in front of a computer hacking for a crypto wallet. If we don’t stop AI, maybe someday.

Fresh: 7.6/10