"Get a life", words spoken by Sharon Stone's character at the end of Sliver, might be a good advice for the protagonist of Hard Drive, 1994 erotic thriller directed by James Marandino. That man is Will (played by Leo Damian), wealthy Californian who never leaves house and spends all his time in front of the computer screen. Reason for that is his obsession with on-line communications, namely those of the sexual nature. Lately he developed on-line relationship with mysterious woman named Delilah. They exchange their bizarre sexual fantasies, and once Delilah suggests that they try one of them in real life, Will agrees. However, this fantasy is rather dark and in might not be as harmless in real life as it is in cyberspace.
Made in a time when Internet only began to establish itself as global phenomenon, this film tries to predict some of its after-effects - alienation and addiction to cyberspace as preferable form or reality. Unfortunately, when screenwriter and lead actor Leo Damian tries to explore the ultimate consequences of such alienation, Hard Drive begins to fall apart. The story is stuffed with plenty of totally unnecessary characters, although at least one of them, Will's real life girlfriend Laura, is played by quite capable Belinda Waymouth. Unfortunately, despite rather nice photography by Sead Muhtarevic, Hard Drive in the end fails because of cliches and director James Marandino's inability to prevent confusion among the audience. Although Hard Drive at least tries to deal with serious subjects, the audience is left with the impression of failed effort, and the subject seems too lofty for for something so exploitative like erotic thriller.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on October 28th 2000)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/278949-hard-drive?language=en-US Critic: A
