What if someone erased your very existence on this planet? Wiped clean the slate that is you and recreated a new image of you? And what if they were sadistic enough to make you into a monster? Say a drug dealer, or prostitute with a heavy criminal record? Scary thought.

Just what would you do? Who could you turn to for help? Don't go to the police, they'll arrest you on the spot because their computer says your a fugitive. Don't use your Social Security number either, that's just as bad. Or your credit cards or phone cards, because your suddenly in debt. And definitely don't leave the country, because you'll never get back in.

Basically, that's the idea that got "The Net" rolling. It's a thriller of the "normal person in extraordinary circumstances" variety; the type of plot that Alfred Hitchcock loved. Here, director Irwin Winkler takes us on a nightmarish voyage through a world where everyone knows you as something other than you are. At times "The Net" is tense, at the edge-of-your seat fun.

Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) gets to play the poor soul. She's is an unpretentious, free-lance computer software programmer. She rarely leaves her house, and seems to prefer delivered pizza and online chat to in-person interactions. She's very much the quintessential computer nerd, and it's actually difficult seeing another actress in this role.

What makes the film work is its beginning and ending. In the middle it lags. The film balances scenes of high-tech computer hacking with low-tech hit man threats.

The film has a remarkably small cast. A slick hacker named Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam), and Angela's shrink and former lover (Dennis Miller) are the only two have have major roles outside Bullock's. In fact, it is this lack of other parts, as well as some large plot implausibilities that are "The Net"s weakest links.

"The Net" takes pains to prove to us that this type of thing could happen to anyone. But actually it can only happen to someone like Angela. She has no real in-person friends. Her mother (Diane Baker) has Alzeheimer's and can't recognize her, eliminating Angela's chance to get out of jail when caught by the police. All of Angela's background is set up in the first 20 minutes of the film and from there she's on her own through most of the film, wandering around trying to prove to people who she is.

"The Net" is a taut high stakes game of cat-and-mouse.

Copyright (c) 1995 Tony Zidek