The King of the Internet Review: Sinning Without Guilt

The King of the Internet turns hacker Daniel Nascimento’s rise and fall into a fast, self-aware crime story that invites us to enjoy the transgression.

Director Fabrício Bittar portrays Nascimento’s crimes in an adventurous and romanticized way, celebrating the excesses of a boy who, for the first time, enjoys luxuries that had previously been out of reach and inviting the viewer to relish the pleasures of a criminal life alongside him.

Daniel wakes up in his hotel room wrapped in a fine robe, surrounded by bottles of alcohol and beautiful naked prostitutes lying in his bed. A few minutes later, there is a knock at the door: room service. Before he can turn it away, the Federal Police storm the room, seize his computer, and take him into custody. We know what will happen to the young man, and we watch his downfall only to then return to the beginning of his story. The King of the Internet is as clear as its opening scene: if the ending no longer matters, it is up to the viewer to enjoy the journey.

The effect seems to offer relief from moral judgment, since we know the criminal will be punished. With that, sinning alongside him throughout his years at the top no longer feels forbidden. Bittar adopts a tone of direct dialogue with the viewer through the protagonist’s own narration of his life and its consequences, placing Nascimento by our side during the plot’s high points. The feeling of partnership and, invariably, complicity with the young man’s initially minor scams leads us to root for him when the scheme begins to involve the formation of a gang that carries out scams throughout Brazil.

The King of the Internet is structured through rapid cuts alternating between references familiar to Brazilian youth during the first two decades of the 2000s. We watch Nascimento’s frugal life, his social awkwardness typical of a nerd at school, contrasted with cuts that imitate advertisements for luxury items of the period: shoes, clothes, watches, electronic devices. Magazines from the era appear amid the routine of a troubled boy with a terrible relationship with his parents, who, through his command of computers, directed by his curiosity toward illicit paths, begins to find small comforts that help him through his turbulent adolescence. Here we are faced with a family conflict common to young people: the tension between his parents’ demand that he find a professional purpose and his desire to enjoy life and make the most of his own youth.

Bittar lingers on this enjoyment throughout the film. As the protagonist becomes involved in more scams and grows illegally wealthy, the director details the various aspects of his hedonism, taking us through increasingly excessive drug and alcohol use. The protagonist, immersed in his own world, abandons his former simple reality and dives headfirst into the hacker life he has built for himself. With metalinguistic humor, Bittar takes us to an exclusive party at the home of an extremely famous former Brazilian football player, strongly implied to be Ronaldinho Gaúcho, deliberately played by Eri Johnson, an actor who looks nothing like Ronaldinho. We hear the voice-over break the fourth wall and jokingly remind us that the filmmakers made the artistic choice not to name him because they do not have the money to pay for potential lawsuits.

The camera follows the young man’s surprised reactions, shaking and blurring the image during his recreational intoxication, while frantic cuts accompany the moments in which he voraciously kisses different women throughout the rooms of the mansion. The self-aware approach attempts to win sympathy for its protagonist, making us forget that we are looking at one of Brazil’s greatest digital criminals of the 21st century: here we see only an irresponsible, reckless, and thoughtless teenager.

João Guilherme plays a Daniel who blossoms throughout the film, quickly overcoming the distance between his naturally confident presence as an actor and influencer and the character’s introspective, withdrawn demeanor, until we forget the actor and see only Daniel. The age difference between a high-school character and the adult actor playing him is still noticeable, especially in scenes where he is bullied by actors who are clearly much younger than he is. Even so, he is convincing in the role of a likable young man. Through his posture, we see the hunched and skinny boy from the beginning become more confident and gallant, while also gaining greater firmness in his voice and speech.

His father, Juarez (Emílio de Mello), is written in a curiously functional way: he serves as a record player repeating moral warnings throughout the film. We expect the father to admonish and correct the boy, reminding him of what is right and that his life is not heading toward a good ending. However, in moments between father and son, de Mello delivers lines rooted in a morality of appearances, such as “what will people say about our family?” or “you’re going to kill your mother with grief” – lines that invoke third parties instead of the son himself and make it clear that the father’s concern is with appearances, not with the boy. The failure to build any emotional bond makes Juarez easier to reject, drawing us even closer to Nascimento. 

The film works best when it embraces its references and becomes an alternative to Catch Me If You Can (2002) or VIPs (2011): in the scenes where Daniel carries out his scams with charm and lightness, The King of the Internet is fun, entertaining, and explores the misadventures of men we already know will fall. It loses much of its strength when it bases this entire adventure on a portrayal of companies and institutions as invariably incompetent. If the adversary ceases to be a concrete victim and becomes merely a bureaucratic and stupid institution, it becomes even easier to enjoy the transgression. The viewer, hand in hand with Nascimento, stops thinking only, “how did he manage to do that?” and begins to wonder: “why not me?”

The King of the Internet is made to entertain its audience and constructs an intoxicating invitation to adolescent hysteria, millennial nostalgia, and criminal pleasure, trusting that Daniel’s foretold downfall will be enough to restore moral order. If punishment was already certain from the first scene, the film teaches us to desire the forbidden, laugh at the scams, share the adrenaline, and admire, without guilt, the audacity of its protagonist.

The King of the Internet (O Rei da Internet) is now available to watch on Globoplay/Telecine in Brazil. In the U.S., the film was screened at the Miami Film Festival in April 2026.