Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Sandra Bullock | ... | Angela Bennett | |
Jeremy Northam | ... | Jack Devlin | |
Dennis Miller | ... | Dr. Alan Champion | |
Diane Baker | ... | Mrs. Bennett | |
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Wendy Gazelle | ... | Imposter |
Ken Howard | ... | Bergstrom | |
Ray McKinnon | ... | Dale | |
Daniel Schorr | ... | WNN Anchor | |
L. Scott Caldwell | ... | Public Defender | |
Robert Gossett | ... | Ben Phillips | |
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Kristina Krofft | ... | Nurse #1 |
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Juan Garcia | ... | Resort Desk Clerk (as Juan García) |
Tony Perez | ... | Mexican Doctor | |
Margo Winkler | ... | Mrs. Raines | |
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Gene Kirkwood | ... | Stan Whiteman |
Angela Bennett is a computer expert. This young and beautiful analyst is never far from a computer and modem. The only activity she has outside of computers is visiting her mother. A friend, whom she's only spoken to over the net and phone, Dale Hessman, sent her a program with a weird glitch for her to de-bug. That night, he left to meet her and was killed in a plane crash. Angela discovers secret information on the disk she has received only hours before she leaves for vacation. Her life then turns into a nightmare, her records are erased from existence and she is given a new identity, one with a police record. She struggles to find out why this has happened and who has it in for her. Written by Official DVD cover
In the dim, dead, dark days preceding my ownership of a PC, I was rather intrigued with the movie. Very Hitchcockian in its tone, and kind of a David-beats-Goliath theme that every one can relate to (Apple vs. Microsoft, employee vs. boss, ad infinitum). Seven years hence...I realize that many of the governmental entities supposedly "hacked" were, at the time of this movie, utilizing systems built when leisure suits were still the rage--and IBM was lord and master of the computer domain. Granted, hackers can be considered a real and acknowledged threat, but we should take this movie for what it is...Just some passably good entertainment and not too representative of R/T (Real Time for all you Netsurfing newbies). However, the plot remains fundamentally sound, and not too taxing on the mind.
Sandra Bullock gave a reasonably credible performance as programmer/support tech/consultant Angela Bennett. I realize that sex appeal fuels Hollywood, and it IS possible to have beauty and brains. But the story seems to have some fundamental flaws. What are the odds that NO one would know who you really were...It's impossible to think that we really have become the so-called "ghosts in the machine". 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.