Despite Miramax’s best efforts to make you think otherwise (i.e. never releasing it in theaters, waiting five years to dump it on video, giving Skeet Ulrich a lead role), Track Down isn’t as bad as you’d expect.

It’s the true story of Kevin Mitnick, the hacker who evaded the FBI for two years after breaking into computer networks and stealing software and data that could have been highly damaging, had he chosen to do so.

Mitnick is played by Ulrich, who no longer looks like Johnny Depp, but Kevin Federline. As he attempts to live off the grid, he’s chased not only by federal agents, but computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura (Russell Wong), whose hard drive Mitnick wiped clean and whose super-secret virus-worm-thingie he swiped.

Track Down has an interesting dilemma: How do you make hacking visually exciting? Well, other than having Angelina Jolie strip down in a pool, you can’t. So it has to rely on your standard cat-and-mouse setup to generate any thrills. But in doing so, Track Down forgets to dumb down the technology aspect to make it easily acceptable. It assumes you already know a lot about hacking, from the lingo to the how-to.

I obviously don’t know as much as I should have, because after watching the film, I have no idea what exactly Mitnick did or who Shimomura is. But I do know that Halloween 6 director Joe Chappelle so obviously used this flashy piece as a calling card to get his CSI: Miami gig.

Jeremy Sisto, Master P and Amanda Peet are thrown into the cast just to piss me off. —Rod Lott

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Five Minutes to Live — aka Door-to-Door Maniac — stars singer Johnny Cash as Johnny Cabot, a two-bit crook who was framed when his partner dropped the dime on him during a warehouse job on the Jersey waterfront. After mowing down two coppers, Johnny bides time in a motel 2,000 miles away, waiting for the heat to subside.

Restless, he gets an offer from goodfella Fred Dorella, who’s got a score that’ll quench Johnny’s thirst for the juice. Dorella plans to walk right into the bank and ask for a $70,000 withdrawal from exec Mr. Wilson, while Johnny holds Mrs. Wilson for ransom at home. Progress will be updated in five-minute intervals via phone, but if Dorella doesn’t dial, Johnny is to ice her.

For a film released in ’61 starring legendary guitar slinger Cash, Five Minutes is edgy and hyperviolent. Cash is surprisingly convincing as the skittish menace. With his personal history, maybe some of that manic energy is pure method, with him howling the methamphetamine blues.

The script tries to add some nuance with a subplot involving Mr. Wilson having a fling. The marital unrest allows for a brief moment where the audience is led to question if the bank exec/hubby will play nice with the robbers’ demands. Unfortunately, all of that gets cancelled like a bad check by a bait-and-switch climax involving the couple’s kid and a sanitized (and outlandish) Hollywood ending, tacked on to realign the studio’s moral compass. Moviegoers know it’s okay to shoot someone … just to watch them die. —Joshua Jabcuga

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That noted action hero Ben Gazzara is on the trail of that noted terrorist E.G. Marshall, who wants to dose the Republican National Convention with nerve gas (hey, who doesn’t?), in the made-for-TV curiosity Pursuit.

I say “curiosity” because it’s directed by Michael Crichton, who manages to make every book he writes a megahit, but whose directorial career peaked with Westworld. Gazzara’s chase — a pursuit, if you will — of Marshall isn’t all that compelling, even if the 24-ish onscreen countdown clock suggests otherwise. Its themes still resonate today, even if the fashions don’t. The final scene is laughable in its inert cheapness. —Rod Lott

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In a hotel, a woman witnesses a matrimonial murder that sends her into a state of shock, so she’s sent to a sanitarium, where she’s treated by … the doctor who committed the crime she saw! Dun-dun-DUNNNNN!

That’s the setup of Shock, an acceptable, brief little noir thriller of psychosis, infidelity and insulin overdoses.

Before he hit it big at horror, Vincent Price acts impressively as the crooked doc, while his bedridden charge is played by Anabel Shaw. As long as he keeps her loony, she can’t finger him as the killer. Shock grows a little melodramatic as it reaches its end, but is worth seeing for an overlooked Price performance. —Rod Lott

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The less you know about Timecrimes, the better, because spoiling the film would … well, spoil it. I can tell you that it’s Spanish, but don’t let the fact you have to read subtitles keep you away. If you’re the type who digs mind-bending thrillers, prepare to have your medulla oblongata raped.

So this middle-aged guy named Hector (Karra Elejalde) sees something through his binoculars from his middle-of-nowhere home: a naked lady and a guy with a creepily bandaged face. Going to investigate, he finds the girl dead and chased by the guy. He runs to a nearby house for safety, is instructed to enter a silo and then …

I ain’t telling. But part of the title spills the beans. And writer/director Nacho Vigalondo does a masterful job in making the story click as it goes through its many precise machinations. Just thinking how he got the idea and actually made it work makes my head hurt, but in a good way.

Pop some Advil and pop this one in the player. Tick-tock, you don’t stop. —Rod Lott

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