{"id":14153,"date":"2026-07-23T02:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=14153"},"modified":"2026-07-23T02:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:36:10","slug":"stream-it-or-skip-it-wardriver-on-paramount-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=14153","title":{"rendered":"Stream It or Skip It: &#8216;Wardriver&#8217; on Paramount+ Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F07%2FWardriver.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em>Hacker thrillers were at their peak in the \u201990s, when they provided a sometimes-outlandish, sometimes-prescient peek, often-cheesy at the possible techno-future that awaited us. <\/em>Wardriver <em>is a hacker movie with roots in the noir genre, and it wasn\u2019t perceived as holding much audience interest, at least not based on its paltry theatrical release last spring. But now it\u2019s ascended the charts on <a data-aps-asc-tag=\"decider08-20\" data-aps-asin=\"\" data-wrapped-template=\"https:\/\/r.deciderlink.com?btn_ref=org-4cd6b7249030f707&amp;btn_url\" href=\"https:\/\/r.deciderlink.com?btn_ref=org-4cd6b7249030f707&amp;btn_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fvideo%2Foffers%3FbenefitId%3Dcbsaacf%26tag%3Ddecider08-20%26asc_refurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fdecider.com%2F2026%2F07%2F22%2Fstream-it-or-skip-it-wardriver-on-paramount-review%2F%26asc_source%3Dweb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-nyp-affiliate=\"true\">Paramount+<\/a> as people discover it at home. Is this a revitalization of the subgenre, or just another cheesy computer movie?<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/movie\/wardriver\/\">WARDRIVER<\/a><\/em>: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>The Gist: <\/strong>Cole (<a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/tag\/dane-dehaan\/\">Dane DeHaan<\/a>) is a skilled hacker putting his skills by poaching wi-fi signals, grabbing bank information, and emptying bank accounts \u2014 usually businesses\u2019 rather than individuals \u2014 for his personal gain (though maybe less gain than you would think, giving his scrappy living conditions). When Oscar (<a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/tag\/mamoudou-athie\/\">Mamoudou Athie<\/a>), a doorman at a fancy restaurant Cole has stolen from, gets wise to the hacker\u2019s schemes, he strong-arms Cole into performing the same digital trickery on Sarah (<a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/tag\/sasha-calle\/\">Sasha Calle<\/a>) and her unusually heavy checking account. When someone comes looking for that missing money, Cole, Sarah, and Oscar are drawn into a web of deception.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Will It Remind You Of?:<\/strong> Rather than a mid-\u201990s internet-paranoia movie like <em><a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/movie\/hackers\/\">Hackers<\/a><\/em> or <em><a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/movie\/the-net-1995\/\">The Net<\/a><\/em>, <em>Wardriver <\/em>plays more like a 1940s noir reskinned for the digital age, complete with criminal types, a morally compromised protagonist, and a possible femme fatale.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Performance Worth Watching:<\/strong> Everyone in the movie\u2019s small cast does nicely understated work, but Dane DeHaan, a former next-big-thing who never quite made it to the top of the Hollywood pyramid, is especially grabby as a loner whose cleverness may not extend as far as he\u2019d like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Memorable Dialogue:<\/strong> Though Daniel Casey\u2019s screenplay does a decent job updating noir tropes for the 2020s, it\u2019s less memorable for its dialogue than its minimalism. We\u2019re often watching Cole on his own, scrambling through scams or typing at a computer, with a compelling use of menacing quiet on the streets of the movie\u2019s Salt Lake City setting.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"WARDRIVER Trailer (2026) Dane DeHaan, Sasha Calle\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eIbIFPONLXU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>Sex and Skin: <\/strong>Though DeHaan resembles sort of a Dirtbag DiCaprio (which is to say, DiCaprio from <em><a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/movie\/one-battle-after-another\/\">One Battle After Another<\/a><\/em>) and Calle is also strikingly gorgeous, the movie\u2019s sexuality is relatively muted for a contemporary movie (though it smolders in an appropriately retro way).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our Take:<\/strong> The minimalism of<em> Wardriver <\/em>occasionally turns into a hinderance. The plot\u2019s twists and turns ultimately feel pretty predictable, especially if you\u2019ve seen more than a handful of noir thrillers. How refreshing, though, to see a new movie with such a firm grasp of noir fundamentals. Director Rebecca Thomas is known primarily for her TV work, including a notoriously <a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/2017\/11\/04\/stranger-things-season-2-episode-7-review-the-lost-sister\/\">fan-hated episode<\/a> of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/show\/stranger-things\/\">Stranger Things<\/a><\/em>. Yet her second feature doesn\u2019t at all feel like that film-TV hybrid you often see in streaming movies. (It probably helps that <em>Wardriver<\/em> was at least nominally produced for theaters.) The film\u2019s atmospheric shadows \u2014 a lot of it takes place at night \u2014 are rich and textured, rather than just murky, and Thomas makes great use of Salt Lake City locations to evoke a world that\u2019s nocturnal and urban but surprisingly desolate at times.<\/p>\n<p>DeHaan and Calle are both superhero-movie refugees \u2014 he was teeing up to iinherit the mask of the Green Goblin in the ill-fated <em><a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/movie\/the-amazing-spider-man-2\/\">Amazing Spider-Man<\/a><\/em> film series, while she played Supergirl in a supporting role in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/decider.com\/movie\/the-flash-2023\/\">The Flash<\/a><\/em> \u2014 but despite their still-youthful good looks, they\u2019re able to play the kinds of parts that in the 1940s equivalent of this movie would go to older-looking (if not actually older) performers. They\u2019re both plenty charismatic, as is Mamoudou Athie, who often plays gentler personalities, while remaining believable as characters trapped in a tight spot. It would be easy to overhype <em>Wardriver<\/em>; this is a small-scale movie, somewhat predictable in its broad outlines. Yet studios have so thoroughly abandoned this kind of modest, yet stylishly-wrought, genre play that a 95-minute hacker thriller with well-drawn characters and noir bona fides feels, at times, like a revelation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our Call:<\/strong> I have no idea how broader audiences discovered <em>Wardriver<\/em>, but they\u2019re right to keep watching it. It\u2019s a rock-solid thriller. STREAM IT.<\/p>\n<p><em>Jesse Hassenger (<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rockmarooned\"><em>@rockmarooned<\/em><\/a>)<em>\u00a0is a writer living in Brooklyn. He\u2019s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sportsalcohol.com\/\"><em>www.sportsalcohol.com<\/em><\/a><em>, too.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.paramountplus.com\/movies\/video\/ALVE01KT7XSDE0EY8SKAZ18GSWT734\/\" class=\"article-list__stream-link\" target=\"_blank\" data-ga-event=\"{&quot;category&quot;:&quot;Stream On: Default&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/decider.com\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/22\\\/stream-it-or-skip-it-wardriver-on-paramount-review\\\/&quot;,&quot;label&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.paramountplus.com\\\/movies\\\/video\\\/ALVE01KT7XSDE0EY8SKAZ18GSWT734\\\/&quot;}\" data-ga4-event=\"{&quot;event_name&quot;:&quot;ux_engagement&quot;,&quot;source_unit&quot;:&quot;Stream On: Default&quot;,&quot;source_position&quot;:&quot;Stream Wardriver on Paramount+&quot;}\">Stream<em> Wardriver<\/em> on Paramount+<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script type=\"text\/plain\" class=\"optanon-category-C0023\">\n\t(function(d, s, id) {\n\t\tvar js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n\t\tif (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n\t\tjs = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n\t\tjs.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&appId=823934954307605&version=v2.8\";\n\t\tfjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n\t}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hacker thrillers were at their peak in the \u201990s, when they provided a sometimes-outlandish, sometimes-prescient peek, often-cheesy at the possible techno-future that awaited us. Wardriver is a hacker movie with roots in the noir genre, and it wasn\u2019t perceived as holding much audience interest, at least not based on its paltry theatrical release last spring&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/decider.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Wardriver.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}