Best movie of this year hands down!

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Almost 2 hours out of my life HAD I decided to keep watching. Boring and stupid. They could've and should've used ordinary people who've never been in a movie and it just might have been interesting. I found the expected kind of silliness in this boring BS filled time-waster! This review does not contain any spoilers as it has nothing in it worth spoiling except the exposing of silliness, especially in the woman Sandra Bullock.

Why a rating of 5? Because 10 stars go to to Sandra's black bikini... To be more precise, to Sandra's wonderful body and her amazing face shot in close up. 0 stars go to everything else, especially the way they present software. I suppose that the at the time Apple managers sponsored the film, just to destroy their own brand: A computer network that's so easy to hack and that lies about everything was not the best way to promote Apple... Thanks God Steve Jobs returned back and stopped immediately those ultra expensive, self destroying ad campaigns. If you love Sandra Bullock, watch this movie, it's worth it. Otherwise forget it.

Following her first big role in Demolition Man, and her big boost in Speed, the leading actress was getting bigger, so obviously the filmmakers wanted to cash in on her popularity at the time, so came this tekkie movie, from director Irwin Winkler (De-Lovely). Basically in Venice, California is computer expert and a systems and software analyst Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock), she works from home for Cathedral Software as a contract employee, and as she mostly communicates online and by telephone she has interpersonal relationships and hardly any with people, even her own mother (Diane Baker) who suffers Alzheimer's disease. A new security system called "Gatekeeper" is becoming universally used, it seems it will thrive for Cathedral in the computer software world as they created it, there also appears on a Cathedral game to be a virus, and a "π" (Pi) symbol appears on the systems occasionally, but Angela is ready for a vacation in Cozumel, Mexico. There she meets suave Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam), he is not all he seems though, as he pays a mugger to steal Angela's purse to take the disk out of it, following a romantic night together on a speedboat she finds his gun and realises he was going to kill her, she steals back the disk and escapes in a dinghy, but she collides with the rocks, destroying the disk and falling unconscious for three days. Angela wakes up and finds that all records of her identity have been deleted, someone checked her out of the hotel, her car is missing, her credit cards are invalid, her house is for sale, and her social security number is under the name "Ruth Marx", her name appears under a number of criminal offences. Another woman has taken her identity, the impostor offers to give her the life she had stolen back in exchange for the disk, which of course no longer exists, the only person she knows could help her get things back to normal, who recognises her facially, is her psychiatrist and former lover Alan Champion (Dennis Miller). With Angela's knowledge of computer systems she uses a password she found in Devlin's wallet and goes to Bethesda Naval Hospital to access confidential records, finding out a conspiracy and about cyberterrorists and hackers the "Praetorians", of course she is tracked along the way by Devlin, working as a contract killer for the cyberterrorists. There is a point where she is arrested due to the crimes listed on her changed records, but she manages to escape, but she is now accused of murder, so she has to rush to prove her innocence and release evidence of the corrupt security system incidents, it is at a computer convention that she accesses the systems once again, while Devlin and the impostor Ruth Marx (Wendy Gazelle) search for her. By the time they find Angela she has already sent all the evidence she gained to the FBI, and she is able to trick Devlin into erasing her false identity, chasing her he unintentionally shoots dead Ruth Marx, and she sprays a fire extinguisher causing him to fall from a catwalk to his death, the film ends with Angela reuniting with her mother and life going back to normal. Also starring Ken Howard as Michael Bergstrom, Ray McKinnon as Dale Hessman, Daniel Schorr as WNN Anchor, L. Scott Caldwell as Public Defender, Robert Gossett as Ben Phillips and Margo Winkler, Irvin's wife as Mrs. Raines. Bullock certainly proves a good choice being the originally lonely computer geek turned innocent fugitive breaking into a number of computers to sort herself out, and it is likely that this was made to coincide with the popularising of the internet, but Northum is rather wooden as the villain, the story is a little overcomplicated and confusing at times, and it could have been a little more pacey and have more frantic hide and seek style chases, but it is near watchable enough, an alright thriller. Okay!

I'm being quite generous giving it a 2/10.The plot consists of a hacker who finds her identity stolen whilst on holiday after a fling with a man of similar profession. Overall the film lacks any mind grabbing atmosphere to it until right near the end. Possibly from the limits in technology during 1995, but ultimately from Irwin Winkler's poor directing this movie has little to offer the viewer. The scenes are far too slow even when there are potentially gripping moments. The characters are weak to say the least (Sandra Bullock's heart didn't seem to be in it) and Jeremy Northam should have been nominated for worst supporting actor (if only they existed back then 'sigh'), his character being neither convincing or entertaining in the slightest. The script even by today's standards is very relevant. Despite the vast developments in technology (gone are the days of floppy disks and fridge sized computers), the threat of internet fraud is far from over and cyber theft looms within the ethernet of society. I fear that the screen writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris were severely let down by Irwin Winkler's inability to stimulate the actors (Dennis Miller being the most convincing of all with a very meager role in the film) and provide short, snappy scenes to create what could have been a work of genius.