DVD Review: The Net (Special Edition)
Written by: Kage Alan

Film Rating: B+
DVD Special Features: B

         There's an interesting trend going on right now with older DVD titles at some of the studios.  Most troubling is the rerelease of some titles in the much
hated Pan & Scan format.  Catering to Blockbuster again are we guys?  Fox has recently gone back into their collection and released Movie Only versions
while studios like Columbia are going back through theirs and releasing
special editions of older titles.  Hmm, which do I want to review?  Pan and
Scan?  Movie only?  Special edition?  Pan and Scan?  Movie only?  Special
edition?  Right, so here's the special edition of "The Net", a film that
helped cement Sandra Bullock's "A" list presence.

Bullock plays Angela Bennett, a woman who prefers to spend her time on a
computer in her house and away from everyone but her mother, who is unable to remember who she is most of the time anyway.  She (Angela) also works from home on the computer, orders her pizzas from the computer and even takes a laptop with her when on vacation.  When a friend sends her a program with a suspected glitch on it for her to investigate, it turns out to be something
far different than she first suspects, something people are willing to go to
great extremes to get back and keep quiet.  When her friend who sent the disc
is killed shortly after, Angela doesn't put things together and leaves for
vacation.

While on the beach, she meets Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam, "Gosford Park"), an extremely charming man who knows exactly how to push all of her buttons. One thing leads to another as things tend to do and they end up having dinner together, her purse gets stolen and she winds up on a boat making love to him after which he pulls a gun on her.  (I thought women preferred death by chocolate?  Oh, sorry, that's my friend Jen-Jen.)  It's at that point when Angela realizes everything she's ever said or done on the Net is far from private and has actually been monitored.  Being the strong woman she is,
though, she surprises Devlin and manages to get away.  This is when things
really start to go wrong for Angela, though.

Getting back to the US proves to be extremely difficult without a passport
and when the embassy looks up her information, she's listed under the name
"Ruth Marx".  Since she just wants to get home, she signs the document and
heads back, only her car is missing from the airport parking lot, her home is
now empty and for sale and everything else about her identity has been either
erased or changed.  Why are they doing this to her and what is this all
about?

While many people more knowledgeable about computers than myself have been pointing out all the shortcomings of "The Net" where computers are used, the overall theme of somebody being able to erase your identity and track you
through the information available on-line remains a concern even today.  Look
at the latest incident at Microsoft concerning their Media Player for Windows
XP.  It was only after someone discovered that it was keeping track of every
CD and DVD that's played in it and sent to Microsoft via the Net without our
knowledge that they came forward and admitted it.  Why is that information so
important?  Heck, what about all those Bonus Club Cards from grocery stores
and drug stores that promise in-store savings while recording all of your
purchases?  Why not just give us the savings without the card?  What is that
information being saved for?  It's scary to think that your future employer
could one day pull up a database and make a determination based on how much alcohol or fatty foods you've purchased or what kind of medication you're on.

There's too much information about us available out there and "The Net" plays
on those fears, though it was a bit ahead of its time when released in 1995.  
Bullock does a wonderful job as someone desperate to get her life back while
Jeremy Northam balances out her goodness with a performance of pure evil.  
Both actors do well challenging each other and the supporting cast
compliments them nicely, especially Dennis Miller as Angela's old boyfriend.

Well, that's the movie and we've probably already seen it once, so what's new
that makes this a Special Edition?  For starters, "The Net" has been
digitally remastered in 16x9 anamorphic video and looks extremely good.  The
audio is a nice 5.1 Dolby Digital English track and French, Spanish and
Portuguese tracks are included as well as English, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Thai subtitles.  That's a whole lot of
language for a PG-13 movie, don't you think?

Then there are the extras.  First up is a series of 2 commentaries.  The
first is with Director Irwin Winkler and Producer Rob Cowan.  It's pretty
much a by-the-numbers commentary with a few interesting tidbits, but it's
also mostly material that's included in one of the documentaries on the disc.
They're fairly dry and a little too "these guys did such a great job" and I
found myself counting how many more discs I have to review before I can play
a video game after work on my PC.  The second commentary by writers John
Brancato and Michael Ferris is MUCH better!  These guys are much more lively and joke around about the film's faults as well as its stronger points.  If
you want to know a lot more about what was originally going to be in the film
versus what ended up in the final product, you'll get a whole lot more out it
than the first commentary.

Next up is a 19 minute featurette titled "The Net: From Script to Screen"
that details the idea of how the story began on paper to what the finished
product on the screen looked like, which is far from where it began
thematically.  Casting is also covered through interviews with the producer,
director and writers.  A cute story that's shared entails how they wanted
Sandra Bullock (who was just starting to attain star status) for the lead,
but she was willing to turn the part down if certain things in the script
weren't changed.  Luckily, everything turned out just fine.  Again, much of
what's said here can also be gleaned in the commentaries, so it depends on
how much time you have to spend watching and listening.

The HBO Special: "Inside the Net" has also been included.  It's basically a
20 minute extended preview with some behind-the-scenes footage and the actors talking about how fascinating the concept is.  This featurette is mostly
something to get you to want to see the film as opposed to giving much
insight into it after the fact.  There's also some trailers and filmogrophies
thrown on the disc for good measure.

It had been a while since I watched "The Net." Come to think of it, I last
saw it when I was still renting Laser Discs.  The film still holds up
thematically and the transfer is nice and pristine.  The extras might have
fared better had there been a newer documentary featuring interviews with the
cast, especially Sandra Bullock, sharing their memories of production and
what the film means to them now.  Since DVD has caught on with so many
consumers and is no longer just a serious collector's venue, I believe that
viewers can identify more with the actors as well as including the material
with the director, producer and writers.  When all is said and done, though,
this is still the preferred version of this film to own and is like visiting
an old friend.

Kage holds degrees in Creative Writing, as well as Film & Video. He has been featured in a Life Journey Tele-Course, published poems in several national anthologies, been a contributor to The Third Coast Magazine and written several novels. kage@modamag.com