MovieChat Forums > The Net (1995) Discussion > Soon as I heard an English accent I knew...

Soon as I heard an English accent I knew he was the baddie

posted 15 years ago by loveagoodstory
2 replies | jump to latest

On the opening titles, Jeremy Northam was listed after Sandra B so I knew he was the leading man.

And as soon as he opened his gob and spoke dreary lines with a really super-plummy English accent...I knew he had to be the baddie.

Not 'might be' otherwise he'd have had a friendlier accent and lines. But a rock-solid, sure-fire, gun-in-your-back nasty old bar steward! Not what you'd call suspenseful casting.

The rest of the film was weak as a kitten but it was fine to fill in time. This was before Sandra got some real clout in Hollywood and could stop taking whatever came along.

Anyone taken in by him, even for a few minutes?

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Free your mind and the rest will follow

[–] tracy-johnson-1 14 years ago

To be fair I'm not entirely sure we were supposed to be 'taken in'. She was, obviously but we'd already seen him hanging around at the airport 'stalkerlike' watching her in a not all that 'wow! look at that stunning girl' kind of way, so pretty much from his first appearance on the beach we're meant to be thinking what's his angle?

All of his chat-up is so perfectly pitched for Angela that he could be one of her chat-room buddies gone a bit obsessive or something more sinister (her friend has already died in mysterious circumstances, while trying to get to her to talk about things he can't discuss on the phone remember). It's not supposed to be that subtle for the audience, it just has to be believable that Angela would fall for him and I think it is. I'd fall for him too.

I'd usually complain about the overuse of plummy Englishmen as the baddies in Hollywood movies but in this case I have no objection - any excuse to have Jeremy Northam on screen in his swimmers ;)

[–] cameron-whyte 10 years ago

Films seem to like to have a baddie with an English, or at least a New England accent.