Sandra Bullock has done it again. "The Net" is destined to be her third big hit in a row (after "Speed" and "While You Were Sleeping") and should go a long way toward putting her in the movie-star stratosphere, up there with Julia Roberts, Demi Moore and Sharon Stone. (Although, for my money, Bullock is much more appealing than any of them.)
A tense and highly entertaining suspense-thriller, "The Net" couldn't be timed better as a cautionary, paranoia tale for the '90s, playing off our collective fears of the rapidly growing but still largely unexplored (by most of us) "information highway."
Bullock plays cyber-nerd Angela Bennett, who works on a free-lance basis out of her home for a major computer conglomerate called Cathedral Systems. She's an analyst who routs out computer viruses and other technical glitches.
But Angela has become so insulated for the past four years that she doesn't know any of her neighbors, has no friends and has never even made an appearance at Cathedral's offices.
Instead, her social life consists of keyboard messages to other hackers, having pizza delivered and sending and receiving material by fax and Federal Express. Her idea of a cozy evening is to download a picture of a roaring fireplace on her monitor. And she occasionally visits her mother (played touchingly by veteran actress Diane Baker), who has Alzheimer's and doesn't recognize her.
The film kicks into gear when Angela receives a confidential program that a friend has accidentally stumbled upon, a program that reveals a computer conspiracy of incredible proportions. And before long, Los Angeles International Airport is shut down by a computer problem, Wall Street becomes the victim of a computer hoax and Angela discovers that the suicide of a government official was prompted by a computer error.
Once the bad guys discover how much Angela knows, they plot to kill her, using a charming hitman/hacker named Devlin (Jeremy Northam). But Angela is more resourceful than they expect, and soon the chase evolves into a high-tech game of cat-and-mouse.
Last year, "Clear and Present Danger" demonstrated that putting someone in front of a computer terminal under tense circumstances can be surprisingly suspenseful. And here, director Irwin Winkler ("Guilty By Suspicion," "Night and the City") manages a similar coup in the climax of "The Net."
He also builds suspense in several other key scenes, though it isn't long before a certain amount of predictability sets in. Winkler and a barrage of screenwriters shaped the story, but the result is little more than a series of cliffhangers. While Angela should tip to what's happening at some point and fight back, she plays a naive victim for too much of the movie.
The filmmakers do, however, manage the high-wire act of using a certain amount of techno-babble to please computer users while keeping things simple enough that the uninitiated won't feel at sea.
Bullock is great, offering another side to her rumpled, lonely woman persona, and she's equally convincing as she fights for her life and as she comforts her mother. The supporting cast is also enjoyable, though Dennis Miller, who shows briefly as a pill-popping psychiatrist to provide some comic relief, never really becomes a character. And Northam barely registers as a rather bland villain.
Still, "The Net" is a real hair-raiser much of the way, providing enough thrills to keep the audience digging fingernails into the arms of theater chairs (or companions).
The film is rated PG-13 for violence, some profanity, a couple of vulgar remarks and discreet sex.