At the beginning of "The Net," Bennett receives a floppy disk (ah, the '90s) from her coworker with a mysterious webpage encrypted into the code. Later, she flies to Cancun, where she meets a charming man named Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam), and the two end up spending some romantic moments together. Things quickly turn sour when Devlin reveals himself to be a bad guy after the floppy disk, and Bennett flees for her life only to get in a boat accident.
Bennett wakes up and realizes her identity has been erased and essentially replaced — her legal documents show that her name is Ruth Marx. The majority of the film then follows Bennett as she tries to uncover the truth, clear her name, and expose the masterminds behind the conspiracy.
While a thrilling plot in itself, the threat of having one's entire identity stolen or corrupted by cyberterrorists was a genuine fear in the mid-'90s, as the internet was getting more mainstream. Thankfully, Bennett is able to use her smarts and computer skills to outwit the bad guys and save herself by the end of the film, but the entire ride up to that point was a rollercoaster.
