The Net

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Rating 3½


Directed by Irwin Winkler

Written by John D Brancato and Michael Ferris

Starring Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Northam and Dennis Miller


I count a lot of films that are now widely acknowledged as classics, both by critics and film fans, amongst my favourites. These do tend to be films from an earlier era and not all of them have always been so highly regarded. I am thinking about the likes of ‘The Thin Man’, ‘The Ghostbreakers’, ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’, ‘On The Town’ and ‘Touch Of Evil’.

I can spot a “classic” film when I see one, although I might be inclined to question that accolade when it is applied to some films. However, when it comes to films, and indeed actors, from more recent times it seems as if I invariably make choices that are widely derided by critics and film fans alike.

This brings me to ‘The Net’. This is one of several Sandra Bullock films I like. Others include ‘Practical Magic’, ‘Hope Floats’ and ‘The Lake House’.

Many people would argue that the films I have just mentioned are cynical join-the-dots Hollywood popcorn fodder, made for the lowest common denominator, with absolutely nothing to recommend them. The Hollywood studios that produced these films would, I suspect, pay little attention to such criticism. Whatever the general opinion of her film choices might be, Sandra Bullock is a genuine box office heavyweight.

This is no indication of any artistic worth in the films she makes. However, the constant allusions to the death of her career I keep reading about simply seems to suggest that film critics are not very good at paying attention to what is actually going on.

I sometimes feel as if I might just be the only person in the world to actually like ‘The Net’, despite its success at the box office, a gross of $111 million. However, although the 33 reviews collected at Rotten Tomatoes result in a 30% rating, which is poor, this is a lot better than I was anticipating. Two good reviews of the film are worth mentioning here.

Roger Ebert opened his review with the comment;

“Perhaps this is simply a charmed period in Sandra Bullock’s life, and soon she will return to earth as an actress at the mercy of her material. Just now, however, she seems able to transcend the genres she appears in – to make us care about her characters even when they’re mired in preposterous dreck.”

He ends the review with the words;

“If Sandra Bullock ever gets a great screenplay, we may need seat belts.”

Michael Dequina, reviewing the film for ‘Mr Brown’s Movies’, wrote, “Irwin Winkler’s thriller is fun popcorn entertainment, thanks in no small part to the always-likeable Bullock.”

These comments get to the heart of why Sandra Bullock films are so popular. She might not feature in the pages of celebrity magazines and gossip rags, but she is a genuine film star in the old fashioned sense of the term. She’s a “Marquee” name who can pull in audiences, despite the old hackneyed myth that female actors don’t have box office appeal.

I’ve always thought Bullock approaches every role the same way; no matter what kind of character she happens to be playing -- in other words, a kind of reversal of method acting. Instead of stripping away and submerging her own personality and morphing into the characteristics of the character she is playing, becoming that person, she gives the character her personality characteristics. Because she is also a skilled actor, this means she can take on a variety of different roles and make us care about each character, whatever their circumstances, simply because she projects a very likeable persona.

It seems to me she is doing what the old Hollywood stars used to do. She plays herself irrespective of the role. It worked for Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne, to name but two.

One criticism of ‘The Net’, apart from the implausibility of the scenario and the supposedly turgid sub-Hitchcockian directing job done by Irwin Winkler, is that the IT-world setting/context immediately dates the film horribly. As Brian McKay at efilmcritic.com put it:

“Stay away from this – unless of course you’re an AOL user with a 28k modem and a Pentium 90mhz, in which case you’ll be right up to speed with this film.”

Here’s an extract from another review, this one written retrospectively in February 2006:

“The Net has aged just as poorly as one might’ve expected; a surplus of dated references to floppy discs and dial-up modems cements the film’s status as a mid-90’s relic.”
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

This exact same thinking has been applied to many other films and TV shows over the years. I’ve never really been able to understand this kind of thinking, although that might just be because the strange world of IT still remains a complete mystery to me, even though it’s something I use every day.

‘The Net’ is my favourite Sandra Bullock film. I always enjoy watching it and not only do the alleged faults not bother me; I can’t even identify their presence in the first place.



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