The Net
Tags: mystery, murder, stupid, psychedelic, action, suspenseful

Plot synopsis:
Angela Bennett is a computer programmer who works from home. She keeps an extensive collection of computer viruses that she removes from her clients systems. She gets a call from her colleague, who asks her for help with a "glitch" he found in one of their clients websites. He sends Angela to the site, where she clicks on a Pi symbol and finds herself transported into the confidential databases of different government agencies. She copies the website's programming code onto a disk to research the problem after she gets home from her vacation to Mexico, which is her first vacation in years. We see her sitting on the beach in Mexico with her laptop, and a gorgeous man (Jack Devlin) strikes up a conversation with her. He gains her trust, and invites her to dinner. After dinner, he takes her for a walk on the beach, where her purse is stolen. The thief gets all of her personal information - passport, driver's license, credit cards, etc. We see that Devlin (the Praetorian agent) was the one who hired the thief to steal her purse, and he finds the confidential disk in her purse. She is very upset, so Devlin consoles her by offering her a ride in his company's boat (supposedly one of his employment perks). While on the boat, they have sex. Angela is cold, so she gets re-dressed. She goes to put on his jacket and discovers a gun. She figures out he is not whom he says he is, so she asks him what the gun is for. He replies, and she knows he is lying. They struggle, and Angela knocks him out. She then escapes from him with the disk that he stole from her, but winds up crashing into a rock and hitting her head. She ends up being knocked out for three days, and wakes up in a hospital in Mexico. The disk was damaged because it was exposed to water and sunlight. She tries to go back to the hotel, but finds she was supposedly checked out over a week ago. She has no ID, so she goes to the American Embassy and to get a copy of her Passport. She has to sign "Ruth Marx" to get the temporary Visa. Once Angela gets back to Los Angeles, her car is gone from the airport. She arrives at her home in a cab to find it empty and for sale. She seeks help from a former lover, Dr. Alan Champion, who checks her into a motel and tries to help her figure this out, even though he really does not believe her story. The Praetorians change Angela's (or from the police department's perspective, Ruth Marx's) file, framing her for theft, murder, and illegal drug use. Setting off the fire alarm at Cathedral, the computer company she works for, Angela discovers her imposter's whereabouts. She gains some time to hack into the mainframe to figure out who did all this to her. She saves all the files and details of the computer scam onto a disk, and heads off to a computer convention. She manages to send the files to the F.B.I. on a computer she borrows, plus places the virus disk into the drive. She tricks Devlin into ruining the mainframe of their own computer system. In the end, she clears her identity, gets the Praetorians arrested, and regains her normal life.

Review: The plot isn't entirely plausible or devoid of clichés, but it remains interesting from start to finish, and Bullock carries the role well.There are scattered scenes that show astute directing on the part of Irwin Winkler, though some of the secondary characters give uneven performances.
He was my favorite character by far and brought a lot of warmth to the role.I'm usually very critical of any movies I see, and am generally turned off by standard Hollywood fodder, but there is a certain charm to 'The Net' that I can't deny.
If you enjoy Sandra Bullock bringing a role to life and want to see a very well made movie for the time, take a look at this little gem.
An old, traditional "chase" plot gives the movie a blip on the screen, but the story is greatly paced and exciting enough to increase your pulse rate to rapid highs.
Sandra Bullock plays Angela Bennett, a lonely computer analyst who is so connected to her computer that she sits on the beach in Mexico, on her first vacation in six years, with her laptop on her lap.
The Manchurian Candidate originally played off the fears instilled in people by the recently ended Cold War, while The Net, a much less potent thriller, suggests the scary possibilities of a world in which we are so inextricably connected to computers.
Probably the most interesting thing in the movie now is the computers, such as the massive laptops with the tiny screens, the indispensable floppy disks which are now almost nonexistent, the graphics, etc.Angela Bennett has had her digital identity stolen and replaced with that of Ruth Marx, who has a lengthy police record and who thus takes over Angela's identity.
It's pretty clever, I suppose, the way the movie presents Angela as though she hasn't left her apartment in six years and with a mother suffering from Alzheimer's (and thus not able to help identify the real Angela later), but it's pretty hard to believe that not a single person in the office where she worked noticed that Angela started being a completely different person.
She had no significant other, was not dating, and no parents who could identify her, but was she such a recluse that even the people in the office she worked in didn't even know what she looked like?At any rate, the plot of the movie is pretty smartly created, although it is created as though it were an excuse for a lot of chase scenes, one of which takes place on a merry-go-round in a great homage to Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train, one of the many classic films to which the movie alludes, several of them other Hitchcock films.
Angela goes from a comfortable but bored computer analyst, doing a lot of her work from home and ordering pizza on the Internet at the end of the day (presumably one of the future possibilities of the internet which never came to exist), to a wanted fugitive, ultimately caught and put into a jail cell for someone else's crimes.
Where the movie trips up is that it tries to suggest that such identity theft could happen to anyone in our technological age, but given the effort put into presenting Angela as someone with no personal contacts with just about anyone, really it could only happen to someone like Angela, and are there really that many people that no one can identify by looks?
Some movies are like that, you have to Rewatch to understand the plot fully.Even though the technology compared to today seems stale back then, it still somehow works out because technology is constantly becoming advanced.We see "Angela Bennett"'s life go into turmoil after getting her hands on computer information.
I'd say the only other main character is "Jack Devlin" (Played by Jeremy Northam) he is also good in his role."The Net" is a cat and mouse game/clear my name/bring justice type of thriller.
The Net is a good thriller with an excellent title that is elevated by the charisma of star Sandra Bullock (still a star in 2015, amazing).
As a period piece, or a time capsule, The Net is perfect, but does it still work as it did for audiences in 1995?Luckily, the Net is not really about technology, its about the nature of identity in a bureaucracy, explored through the lens of technology, with the interweb as a weapon, and those issues are still relatable, and a movie like The Net serves as a good reminder of how trusting we have become of our internet privacy..
It's about Angela Bennett(in a great performance of Sandra Bullock) who is a computer expert who works for the Cathedral Company, cleaning virus and testing games for the clients.
At the same night, when Dale was going to meet her, he is suddenly killed in a plane crash.Going to Mexico in her vacation,Angela meets a beautiful guy called Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam)who shows to be a cold blood killer bastard and one of the guys behind all the secret of the Diskette.Her life then turns into a nightmare: All her records are erased and she is given the new identity of Ruth Marx, a woman with serious problems with the police.This movie is great because it shows how we, humans,depend a lot of the computers and machines(sometimes more that we should) and how vulnerable we are if someday ,someone decides to control and change our personal records,without letting us the chance to prove the error..
This is a typical Sandra Bullock movie in which she plays a mousy (but profane) woman who is in trouble but finds a way to survive and be the hero.
In the film, Sandra Bullock lives alone, spending most of her time fixing her company's computers online.
There is less obvious comedy and glamour in this role, but Sandra Bullock is excellent and intense, as the woman fighting for her life, and ends on a happy note caring for her Mother, and with a new status, working from a new home.
There were a lot of conspiracies in this movie, in my opinion its a film that makes you really think how controlled your life is by the internet.
As long as we have receipts, hard copies,friends and loved ones, we won't be caught in "The Net." Some good performances by the smooth but irreverent Dennis Miller, and by the suave but deadly Jeremy Northam make for a movie worth watching when there's nothing better on the boob tube...Or if you're a closet geek like yours truly, you call friends and laugh about all the inaccuracies..
Sandra Bullock is very appealing as an unloved independent systems analyst who unknowingly gets hold of a disk that could bring worldwide chaos; pretty soon, she's dodging bad guys, running from the cops and putting her allies in danger (including Dennis Miller, who is surprisingly good).
I loved the way she gets out of a building swarming with security: she dons a fireman's outfit and escapes, but then the bad guys see a nicely piled fireman's outfit (and helmet!) sitting on the sidewalk and yell, "She's getting away!" Just one example of how this movie is so completely brainless, but yet entertaining enough on a non-think level that you tell yourself not to notice.
I have watched this movie perhaps 16 to 20 times and always like it...The part I found most interesting is that the plot, or the larger picture is always in the background (like on the TV-screen news when that is shown).
Sandra Bullock, once again, outdoes herself in this wicked film all about the Internet and the taking-over of people's lives.In 'The Net', Bullock stars as Angela Bennett, a computer-whizz, who while on holiday, encounters a dangerous man, who steals her wallet...
and her life.Soon, the real Angela Bennett disappears, and an ex-con, takes on her identity, swapping her life for Angelas!Of course, Sandy isn't the type to take this kinda thing lying down - and all on her own, she fights hard to get back the life they took away from her.A wicked film - that'll leave you breathless for start to finish!!
Much of Sandra Bullock's behavior and action seem to be consistent and reasonable considering the circumstance she finds herself and fascinating in that she doesn't need to depend on extraordinary measures outside of her on-screen character which in some ways dampens the excitement of the movie but at the same time places it more in the human-reality context.
Made and released at the time when the internet was just becoming huge, this is a storyline Hitchcock would have loved.Sadly, Hitchcock wasn't around to make it, and we're left with an occasionally suspenseful but mostly silly thriller, that is held (barely) together by Bullock's intelligence.It was released in 1995 but is already dated, and the amount of mistakes and inaccuaracies regarding computers must be seen to be believed, and you don't even have to be a dot.com person to spot them!.
How many movies have we all seen where early in the story, the lead character needed only to collect his/her thoughts, compose a rational, calm presentation of the events (such as mistaken identity, here), and communicate with a variety of acquaintances, public officials, friends, etc., which would have to lead to a resolution (maybe with 10-12 minutes of film time) of the hoax perpetrated by the "bad guys?"The Bullock character here could have cleared-up the mess soon after she emerged from the Mexican clinic, and was faced with her stolen identity, and the switch with that of the Marx character.But all of that would present about as much drama as a documentary of an individual taking care of an error in issuing the wrong license plates by the department of motor vehicles.So here we have the heroine embarking on an adventure to combat a horde of high-level miscreants, with space-age technology and a host of hit men at their disposal (not to mention millions of dollars and an infrastructure equal to small nation).
Sandra Bullock was good, and Jeremy Northam was creepy as the bad guy, mostly because he was so goodlooking and smooth that he was hard to hate.I'd give it an 8 out of 10 for good suspense and an interesting look at the Internet when it was just beginning..
So thank you, Sandra, for touching all our lives with a story that not only informs us as to the dangers of incredibly fictional, only-in-the-movies type cyber-badguys, but it also lets us know how close we all are to being erased.
At the time this movie was made, concepts presented in this flick were advanced for the public, yet had already happened to friends of mine by way of people in powerful positions.
And, I know what it is like when people do to you what they did to Angela Bennett, because they have done it to me.I greatly enjoyed Sandra Bullock's portrayal of Angela Bennett/Ruth Marx.
I thought the net was great,because it shows how frustrating computers could be,even for nerds.I liked the way sandra played a 14 year old type person.some of her behavior was more like a teenagers behavior.Jeremy northam who is great as the hacker really is deadly in this role.I am a huge sandra bullock fan,this might be her best film.
Other then updating for the information age, The Net isn't particularly different than any other "One person on the run by a vast global conspiracy - nobody believes her."  The biggest suspension of disbelief is that Sandra Bullock's character is a computer nerd, and that drags down what little "realism" the pic may have.
I have no doubt that Sandra Bullock falls for the taste.Though too many efforts have been made to foreshadow the climax that comes too late, the movie is still thrilling especially in the cat-and-mouse chasing scenarios and near the end of the story.
It may of seen far fetched back in the the day of its release One having their whole identity erased But today it's a horrifying reality with computers taking over the world as we speak It's a nail bitter for sure the pace the action never lets up And with our lives dependent of computer technology We are only a key stroke away from our whole identity being DELETED Watch this movie.
I am usually very picky and even small stuff gets me to complain.This movie actually does a very good Job at making this kind of Identity Theft even possible Today.
Not just a worthy entry in the lush conspiracy-thriller genre, `The Net' is innovative in the way it works out the action heroine's life vis a vis her addled mother and her potential boyfriends: Northam, suave but with obvious negatives, and a shrink who sounds disconcertingly like, and is, caustic comic Miller..
I just wish they could have used some kind of networking/computer expert to help them out with the technical details and some able writers to avoid the problems they ran into with this movie, but it's always better to make some quick cash with a trendy subject, than making a movie with any historical value.The only good thing in this movie is sexy Sandra Bullock, who is one of my favorite actors.
A good number of people have given this movie a hard time about its representation of some technology.
The writers could have made this a realistic movie with a good story, however they decided that all they needed to do was write a ludicrous script with explosions to capitalize on Sandra Bullock's current popularity and the internet boom.
I really like Sandra Bullock in all acting, but the net was the best!
This was a good thriller where Sandra Bullock plays a computer expert who vacations in Mexico.
For all I know, it could happen.Computer debugger Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) came across a mysterious disk that gained her access to anything she could possibly want: the FBI mainframe, the White House, anything.
The characters are pretty well-written, though I found that Sandra Bullock's character, being that she's a hacker, would be less naive and would have anticipated at least a few of the things that took place in the movie, being that most of it involves hacking.
I recommend this movie to people who like a good thriller, especially people who know a lot about computers and the Internet, as they will understand it a bit more.
Sandra was 31 at the time of this movie, and she makes the beach scene look good..
Good film with best yet from Sandra Bullock.
Mediocre Internet crime thriller which starts OK, but then lacks development and turns pretty much into Sandra Bullock being chased around by lots of nasty but clever people who also delete/steal her passport, credit cards, work, insurance records and everything else.The "reason" for all mayhem is fairly lame  and to me some of these events appeared to occur in the wrong logical order.
Whole film is tense, but seeing it for first time 23 years after it is made, it is really impossible to think something like that can happen right now.
Irwin Winklers ability to bring reality into a thriller gives it the credibility that says "This could happen - this could be me!"Full marks for a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat based just on good scriptwriting and acting alone!If you like this one, "Enemy of the State" is worth looking at as well..
If that type of situation were to happen to a person in real life then that person would be paranoid beyond belief and no doubt feeling despair.I love films like this where nothing is what it seems and you're never sure who is good and who is bad.
A movie about a freelance computer systems analyst who's identity get's erased from the system, as Angela Bennett [Sandra Bullock] stumbles on conspiracy and corruption while de-bugging a game for a software company she works for.
When Angela (Sandra Bullock) went to Mexico, I thought to myself, "That is a really nice place to vacation." From the moment Jack (Jermey Northam) and Ruth (Wendy Gazelle) began chasing her, I thought to myself, "Don't let anything bad happen to her!
In an age when the internet is fairly new, computer expert Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) finds herself involved in a computer glitch after the information on her driver's license, credit cards, bank accounts and her identity have been erased unbeknown-st to her by a high security programming group known as the Praetorians.
She is then given a new identify with a police record; therefore, she is on the rush to hide from the authorities, find her true identity, and locate the Praetorians, who want to obtain a disk containing confidential information from her.From Bennett struggling with the loss of her identity to her attempting to track down her real identity, all the while dodging the police and the Praetorians, this movie is full of the classic adventure, mystery, and thrills that keeps the plot going and the audience captivated.Many computer geeks would probably critique the ways the internet or computer programming were described or used in this film, but they should just put those tidbits aside and focus on the pure entertainment this movie brings.
Sure Sandra Bullock is a great actress, but I think she's better in other movies myself.
Well, first of all I have to say that while I am fond of Sandra Bullock for her personality, at the same time I think most of the films she's been in are not a must see.
If you love Sandra Bullock movies, this one is probably the right one for you.
Sandra Bullock is funny, refreshing, and tragic by turns, as a "nobody" caught in the middle of a major conspiracy to take over the Internet, and thereby, our very lives.Like many good films, "The Net" lets us see things from various points of view at once.
Sandra Bullock who plays Angela Bennett lives and breathes computers.