![]() ![]() "The Net" sets a record with three stories in a row, all dealing with aspects of the plot. It's well-known that in the movies when someone turns on a TV, a story crucial to the plot is always miraculously right there on the screen. And the bad guys have programs that can not only hack into any computer, but do it instantly, without bothersome details like dial tones, log-ons, etc. Her online buddies are always on call for her. She has an ultra-high speed modem connection, I guess, since Internet stuff pops up the moment she hits the return key. It's a revealing detail that she uses Macs (which for me means she loves computers instead of merely working with them). The computer stuff will interest anyone into such things. She creates the sensation that although a scene may seem absurd to us, it seems perfectly real to her. She's so natural she seems to be remembering a scene rather than playing it. How does she do that? She's very low-key. This stuff is so concocted I had no business caring about it. She's stripped of her identity through the manipulation of computer files, her apartment is taken away, she's given a police record, her only friend ( Dennis Miller) runs into big trouble and, yes, she even gets involved in a deadly catand-mouse game on a merrygo-round. The computer programmer is, in essence, Hitchcock's favorite character: the Innocent Person Wrongly Accused. The rest consists of a series of excuses for the director, Irwin Winkler, to place Bullock in situations well known to Hitchcock heroes. That's the part of the plot that more or less holds together. To dramatize the need for such security, Devlin's employers have tied up LAX, screwed up Wall Street, put six Chicago banks out of business and caused the suicide of a high government official. This Devlin is a smooth customer he even ties his handkerchief around her midriff to keep off the cool night air, just like Cary Grant's character named Devlin did in Hitchcock's "Notorious." What he's actually after is a computer disc she has - a disc that would expose the secret of a scam to sell computer "security" programs to big customers. The friend offers to fly down to talk with her about his discovery, but dies in a plane crash.Īngela already has decided to take her first vacation in years, and in Mexico she meets a goodlooking guy named Devlin ( Jeremy Northam), and falls for him. It seems to be devoted to Mozart, but when you click the little Pi symbol on the lower right hand corner, while holding down the Control and Option keys, suddenly you're rocketed into top-secret government files. One day, a good friend (who she has never seen face to face) clues her in to a strange page on the World Wide Web. In "The Net," she's a computer professional who sits at home for days on end, testing new software.įor fun, she visits the chat rooms of online services, or orders pizza by modem. The Bullock character, named Angela Bennett, is a shy, reclusive intellectual who, in the old days, would have been a librarian or a schoolmarm. True, "The Net" dresses up its plot with a trendy front end, by using the Internet as a hook. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |