THE NET
US, 1995, 115 minutes, Colour.
Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Northam, Dennis Miller, Diane Baker.
Directed by Irwin Winkler.
An enjoyable chase thriller that relies on audience interest in and skills with computers to be fascinated by the espionage and intrigue. Sandra Bullock (on a roll after Demolition Man, Speed, When You Were Sleeping) is a reticent expert who comes across a disk she should not have. Not only is she pursued and menaced, but her identity, her computers and her home are all obliterated. But, as in less technological eras, she outwits the villains (who are into world control - and prove it in a scene where they tie up the LA airport computers and put schedules in chaos) and uses a disk and the delete button to re-claim the world. I rather liked the review that Karl Quinn of the Melbourne Weekly coined after the preview, `The mouse is mightier than the sword'. Access denied versus delete.
1. Entertaining '90s thriller? Espionage? Conspiracies? The use of the Internet? The dangers of new technologies? The possibilities?
2. The Californian settings? The city? Mexico and the holiday resort? Chases, day and night, light and darkness? The offices, the computers, the computer show? The musical score? The use of 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'?
3. The title, the focus on the Internet? The web of the net in which Angela found herself?
4. The plausibility of the plot? Angela credible as a technology expert? Her network? The conspiracy? The skills of the businessman? His henchmen and the violence of his praetorians? The suicide of the director - and the power of the praetorians? Chases, Angela outwitting all the villains?
5. Sandra Bullock as Angela: In herself, shyness, her relationship with her mother, her mother's Alzheimer's, going to visit her, the desperate phone call for her identity, the final visit and the flowers? Alone? Her communication with people on the Net, their codes? The mistaken disk? Contact with Dale - and his death? Her going on holidays, the approach of Devlin, her falling in love, the relationship? Her discovery of the gun, the threats? Her loss of her purse - and her identity? Taking the boat, the injury? Finding that she had been removed from the hotel list, her card and identity gone? Becoming Ruth Marx? Devlin and his pursuit? Her contact with Alan, his help, his illness, death? Alone? Her going to the office, her eluding the substitute Angela, finding out where she was, going to her terminal? Copying the disk? The pursuit, going to the show, obliterating the disk with the virus? The pursuit by Devlin and Marx? Chase, deaths? The final news - and her vindication? The struggle of the individual against the large corporate company?
6. Devlin as villain, suave Englishman? Meeting Angela at the resort, the seduction? His chasing the man with the purse, shooting him? The violence, the pursuit? Using computer techniques, tracing phones? Angela's ability to elude him - especially with the cellular phone? The alternate Angela and the phone calls, at the terminal? His ruthlessness? The final pursuit of Angela, the computer show, on the roof, shooting Marx, the fall to the death?
7. Ruth Marx, the power of the praetorians? Her work, Angela and her sounding the fire alarm, people exiting from the building, Ruth's return? The show, the pursuit, her being accidentally shot? The other members of the praetorian - especially the alleged FBI agent escorting Angela from the hospital?
8. The director, his suicide, his message to his family, the fabricated records, the truth?
9. The potential for chaos with viruses, with infiltration of systems: the sequence at LA Airport and the chaos, Wall Street...? The atmosphere of the '90s and the Millennium Bug?
10. Alan, his support, death? Dale, the possibility of solutions, his plane crash? Conspiracies and violence?
11. Entertaining thriller? The '90s techno-thriller and conspiracies - but with the capable woman as overcoming all odds?
