THE NET
[Spoilers]
A film review by Allan Toombs
Copyright 1995 Allan Toombs
A Cyber-Nightmare (Full Discussion With Plot Details)
I approached THE NET with some trepidation as the vanguard of what looks to be a deluge of Computer/Internet/VR films Hollywood has in store for us. Also if you consider TRON, WARGAMES, and JUMPIN' JACK FLASH, as it's forebears THE NET could have been just another gee-whizz hacker romp.
I'm delighted to report that THE NET is a full-bodied intelligent thriller that keeps the technology to a minimum and adrenaline levels high. The plot again by incident or design is a classic Hollywood three act.
Act 1 - Sets up the nightmare, Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) is a bright semi-freelance computer professional working from home, hanging out on IRC channels but happily without a boyfriend. Specializing in anti-virus and debug she receives a beta of a multimedia promo for an awful Wayne and Garth type band called "Mozarts Ghost." There's rogue code in the disk but she has just booked a holiday. Her boss here becomes the first to die in a bizarre night-flying accident. On the beach she meets the charming Mr. Devlin (Jeff Northam) and here I began to wonder if this was going to be a him and her on the run together movie. However it soon becomes apparent that Devlin is as deadly as he is attractive. The scenes on board his boat are tense and shot with clarity. Narrowly escaping with her life Angela's dingy crashes.
Act 2 - The nightmare begins when she wakes up in a cheap Mexican hospital without passport, ID or credit cards. At customs control she is told her social security number makes her Ruth Marx. Still a little bewildered from the crash and desperate to get back home she signs this new name. On arrival she finds her car has gone and her house is stripped of all her possessions and up for sale. When she makes a scene for the police they check on her ID. Down the street in a car Devlin accesses Ruth Marx's file and adds a few wanted for narcotics and prostitutions. So begins a chase in which Ms. Bullock uses considerable wit and courage to evade an organisation that effectively deprive her of any financial/social identity. What they are after is the disk of 'Mozarts Ghost' which contains their comms software and surety that copies have hot been stashed anywhere on the Internet. In the end she is imprisoned and speaking to her attorney she sounds like a sad delusional paranoid raving about super-powerful conspiracies. She calls her mother who in an clever, novel twist suffers from Alzheimers. Act 2 ends in the pits of depression as she realises that even her mother cannot remember her as Angela Bennett.
Act 3 - Is how our heroine hits back but you really need to see the movie here. Let me say that it is well executed and Ms. Bennett uses her considerable intelligence to spread confusion in the enemy's camp.
Indeed for Sandra Bullock this film is a triumph. THE NET heroine is a sort of female FUGITIVE at times and any man who helps her meets an invisibly organised death. Indeed there is a grim contrast here between the suave, simmering, handsome Devlin who kills without compunction and the rather literally named Albert Champion a ditched lover she turns to out of sheer desperation since he is middle-aged, self-satisfied and subtly obnoxious with a tinge of pathos. As her supporter he provides the voice of the anti-conspiracist but ultimately falls foul of a series of medical "mistakes" engineered by manipulating computers. Sandra Bullock confidently guides the character of Angela Bennett between the extremes of ball-breaking paranoid(eg. Sigourney Weaver at the end of Aliens) and wimpering victim (just about anything with Goldie Hawn). Indeed she has something of an everywoman quality that compels the audience into identifying with her. I was up there running with her every step of the way.
In some ways the film indicts her original semi-reclusive lifestyle as it is very apparent in Act 2 how few non-Net friends she has and that the neighbours can't tell her from Eve. After watching THE NET you might find yourself giving the keyboard a rest and chatting to next door with a newfound earnestness. The powerful message of the film is that if we rely on credit-cards for identity we don't need real people. That is until the day the credit-agency fouls up. Very 'get involved', very Clinton and absolutely on the button.
But I hear you cry what of the hardware? Well you won't catch any howling goofs in this field as most computers are unspecified PowerMacs/PowerPcs. All graphics front ends used are obvious mock-ups to make type clearer and the on-line characters more colourful. To begin with Angela uses a speech synth for the other IRC users however we soon rely on her speaking all type to give it life, a dramatic device that works very well. I think the point here is that the precise look and feel of the technology is irrelevant. There is something of a near-future feel to the film (without being science-fiction) so maybe there are bulletin-board/IRC's with glorious technicolour icons. Look out for Gregg Shaw, a technocrat we only see through TV news, who bears an uncanny similarity to Bill Gates, an evil twin perhaps. May I also commend the scriptwriter for not forcing a 'we meet at last Ms. Bennett' type scene between Bullock and this character. If you're going to have remote-control conspiracies then it's right to keep them faceless. This also keeps what could have been quite a confusing plot simple as the cast is compact.
However before I give the impression this is a cyberpunk film let me emphasise that THE NET is first and foremost a thriller featuring set-piece chases that Hitchcock would have been proud of. By inverse compliment I can see this kind of cyber-nightmare scenario becoming an easy staple for lesser film-makers in years to come. Computers are pivotal to the plot but do no more than in other 'lost identity' movies. In this respect there is nothing innovative about THE NET but it is a pumping, classy thriller firmly footed in the 1990s and worthy of serious discussion.
-- Allan Toombs http://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/bt18/atoombs.html mailto:toombs@cityscape.co.uk
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