It might be more of an issue with the story telling than the actors performance themselves. For instance the changes in Joe and Gordon's characters was confusing. Gordon goes from being shy nerd to reckless coke addict, like huh.. Joe kinda becomes a new age softy. The hacker house vibes were off, a bunch of 20-30 year old playing tag and having nerf gun wars.. okay, I guess. Its just very hard to suspend belief and get into the story. As someone else mentioned, it gives off Hackers vibes. It feels like the writers weren't really familiar early tech and were just going off what they thought it would be like.