The film is a Kafkaesque nightmare[2] in which a young computer programmer is an unwitting guinea pig in a corporate experiment to test a new advertising scheme.

The film stars Jeremy Sisto and Deborah Unger and features Lance Henriksen, Eugene Byrd, Bruce Payne and Udo Kier.

In the nightclub, Simon sees the Neighbour interacting with a number of women, including Trish (Deborah Kara Unger).

[6] Nile tells Simon about a corporate experiment to ‘infuse’ Nanomites into people's brains to make them addicted to certain products.

[7][failed verification] The directors cited a number of influences on the film including Orson Welles' The Trial, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Michelangelo Antonioni's Red Desert, Michael Powell's Peeping Tom[8] and David Cronenberg's Videodrome.

[11] One reviewer stated that 'If Philip K. Dick was reading Kafka, got freaked out and wrote The Matrix, which was then directed by Stanley Kubrick, you might end up with something like this'.

[12] Phil Davies-Brown stated that the 'film is such an accomplished piece of work with rich texture, amazing use of location, lighting and camera and fine performances from some of the genre's most respected talents'.

[14] Ryan Cracknell commented that 'while the story is very original combining the techno-edge of The Matrix with Orson Welles’ The Trial, it's the mood and atmosphere where the filmmakers really shine'.

[17] Andrea Ballerini stated that 'the movie has all the classic ingredients of the cyberpunk genre: a dystopian environment, powerful corporations trying to rule the citizens, the role of technology in the development of society, the pros and cons of progress'.

[20] He also stated that the film was 'a gripping and dark science fiction thriller, which achieves its effect not least from brilliant image design'.

[22] A reviewer for TV Guide stated that 'sci-fi drama and paranoid thrills drive this smart and highly original chiller'.

[26] Erik Childress stated that the 'film is very much like Soylent Green...as our protagonist wades through a creepy and dank futuristic setting before being hit over the head with a staggering realization' but that 'like the Charlton Heston cult classic, there's a lot of atmosphere to engulf an audience but it becomes tiresome, only to get really interesting again in the final scenes'.

[28] Kelvin Polowy stated that 'like The Matrix, the film plays on corporate and technological paranoia, and it's a stylish if not ground breaking entry into the subgenre'.