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Usually Google zeros in immediately on any movie I'm trying to remember (yes, it happens to me not infrequently) but this one I just can't find. It's very roughly ten years ago I think.

There is a "bad guy" experimenting with mind control, but the hackers (good guys of course) are able to hijack the signal and broadcast messages that the hero can see (looks like painted writing in the air) which helps him avoid capture. It gets more complicated as the movie goes on.

This movie (is there a book or short story that the plot comes from?) is an early portrayal of Augmented Reality in a similar way to how this scene in Johnny Mnemonic is an early portrayal of Virtual Reality.


Reality imitates art:

enter image description here https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/11/tech/google-maps-ar/index.html

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Hardwired

Movie poster

In the not-too-distant future where corporations control nearly every aspect of human life, a man named Luke Gibson is involved in a car accident that claims the life of his wife and their unborn child. Luke has severe brain damage, but Hope Corporation agrees to implant a chip into his brain to save his life. He discovers that this chip also constantly sends advertisements until either the person obtains the product, or they go insane. While trying to figure out why they did this to him and who he is, he finds out that the chip is a test product with a fail-safe that could kill him. He succumbs to the effects but the Corporation fears that their test might be discovered, and they decide to activate the fail-safe. Just before it goes off, a group of underground hackers led by Hal and "Keyboard" hack into the chip and save his life. After using the chip to guide him away from Hope Corp. pursuers, they agree to try to help him remember who he is in exchange for assisting in their fight against Hope Corp. They show him that his accident was no accident but actually planned by Hope Corp. so they could use him as a test subject. He agrees to help but is captured during the attempt and taken to a facility controlled by Hope Corp. Luke, with the help of Punk Red and Punk Blue, manages to fight his way to the leader of the project, Virgil Kirkhill. Virgil is killed after a short confrontation, and Luke escapes. He meets up with "Red" and "Blue" (the only remaining members of the underground group). Together they vow to continue the fight until Hope Corporation is destroyed.

I remember the instructions being broadcast onto his vision and a scene near the end where they project security camera footage into his visual field, including switching over to a nightvision mode when the lights get turned out.

Here are some stills of the messages they sent him:

"We stopped the pain" "Duck"

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  • Excellent! Thank you for tracking that down so quickly from such a scant description.
    – uhoh
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 14:05
  • Nice work, @FuzzyBoots! :-)
    – Praxis
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 14:12
  • :) It's a movie I watched in the last year or so, so it had stuck in my mind.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 14:22
  • I've added an image to the question ;-)
    – uhoh
    Commented Feb 12, 2019 at 2:36
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    @uhoh: Thank you. That reinforces the answer, as I understand it.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Feb 12, 2019 at 2:59

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