Firewall (2006)

2 stars out of 4

The Bottom Line:

A shameful return for Harrison Ford, Firewall is a study in unoriginal mediocrity that delights in proving to the audience, again and again, that exactly what they think is about to happen is indeed about to happen. January 1, 2009

Suspenseful

This movie was suspenseful, a fugitive quality movie. Harrison Ford was great and never seems to age. I like the selection of actors and the scene dynamics. The Action, music, and acting were suspenseful.

Plot: Jack is head of computer security, at a local bank in Seattle with 27 branches and an airtight security system. Jack misdirects hackers by leading them to false accounts. The thieves realize they can't penetrate the system, so seek an inside job.

Identity theft occurs and Jack is accused of Internet gambling fraud of $95,000.

Jack wrote the banking software and understands the security systems. Jack and Henry are involved in merger takes with a large bank with over $200 million dollars in assets. A theft and his five-team (impersonating pizza delivery) kidnap Jacks family and force him to steal $100 millions deliverable to five Cayman offshore accounts. Sarah, the daughter, asks one of the thieves," why do you hate us" and he replies, "Sarah, I don't hate you - I just don't care about you." After the death of the first thief, Beth starts working on convincing the remaining thieves that Cox will not let them live because he wants all the money for himself. The thieves don't seem persuaded by her comments, with the exception of one, but he does little to aid in their escape.

Cox is cruel. He purposefully causes the little boy, Andrew to go into an allergic seizure, after feeding a cookie with nuts. Jack must beg for the medication. At that point Jack decides he must steal the money.

The thieves like the Cayman accounts for its low income tax. Jack uses an ipod and fax scanner input to record maintenance screen images of accounts and then uses optical character recognition to reverse the images into text for upload into the thieves' databases. The thieves have a way to setup accounts in the Cayman Islands.

Jack fires his secretary. Jack uses Bills PDA to take a picture of wire account; he uses to transfer the $100 million dollars. Later, Jack tells his secretary, he was forced to fire her by thieves, and they need Bill's pda. Bill has been chasing the secretary and leaving flowers and inviting her to religious revivals. Jack uses the wire account to reverse the $100 million back into the bank, believing he will protect his family. Cox has plans to kill the family and takes them to a remote house near a lake. Jack uses the dogs GPS tracking system to local the family and rescue them. Jack saves the bank and his family.

It is unclear, if Henry was involved in theft. Cox discloses to Jack that they were inside already at the time of introduction. Cox had control of Jacks computer when he tries to send a emergency email. Henry tells Cox, he can't believe the deal is happening. What deal is Henry excited about.

Jack discovered encrypted files under the name "cox". Henry was the person who introduced Cox to Jack. Cox introduces himself as an entrepreneur.

After Cox obtains the electronic money, he frames Jack for the murder of Henry. The plot was Henry was having an affair with Jack's wife, Beth, and Jack kills Henry in Jealous rages after Jack discovers the affair. Jack then was to disappear and the thieves escape with their money.

However, Jack is hiding at the time of Henry murder by Cox, and kills the thief assigned to kill him. Jack reverses the action by taking back the thieves money by wire transfer and tracks down Cox.

Cox himself kills two his team and Jack kills three (one with a food mixture and the other by automobile) and one in a fight. Cox and Jack remain, and it's a one on one fight between the two, with Cox dying by gruesome means.

October 13, 2008

Harrison Ford at his finest...

I had seen this movie long before I bought it, and I think it is one of Harrison Ford's finest moments. I have always considered Ford to be nearly the best actor - and this movie is a classic. He so well portrays a father, a loving husband, an office working man, and everyday guy, a desperate man, but he plays well an older man who has real human limitations, fears, and frustrations. This is an ABSOLUTE MUST SEE for anyone, but especially Harrison Ford fans.
Paul Bettany also does a bag-up job, very convincing in some parts. Almost scary. August 12, 2008

Not too well done.

In this movie, Harrison Ford plays a bank security executive whose family is kidknapped by a gang of thugs who demand he crack the banks software security (which Harrison himself designed) or else lose his family.

This would not be such a bad action flick if not for the fact the Harrison's age makes the action scenes seem unrealistic. Harrison Ford is no Chuck Norris and his grande finale fight against a squad of young thugs is lauphable, not credible. In addition, it would have helped if the children in the movie were Ford's grandchildren instead of his children. You know, like Harrison has his divorced daughter and grandchildren staying with him for awhile instead of making Ford look like a dirty old man with a young money hungry wife.

There is nothing original about this film, either. It immediately brought to mind the movie "Hostage" with Bruce Willis except that Willis really is a tough guy and some roles are reversed. It was also annoying that Jimmy Bennet played the hostage boy in "Firewall" as well as in "Hostage" (although Bennet did good in both) because it continued to remind me that everything about the movie seemed unoriginal.

Finally, I still do not get the film's title, "Firewall". Did something get tossed out or is it just a catchy title because there is no reference to a "firewall" in the movie as I can recall.

The movie is just too unconvincing and unoriginal for my taste. July 26, 2008

Firefly

Mark Twain once said that the difference between the right word and the word that's almost right is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Firewall, starring Harrison Ford, and the still exquisite Virginia Madsen, is a firefly. It has all the elements of a taut thriller, highly pressurized situations, loathsome baddy, sympathetic good guys, excellent production value, acting, and cinematography. The only thing missing is the thrill.

This is such familiar country for Harrison Ford that one wonders if he even needs to look at the scripts anymore. He's in a jam, his family is in danger, and he must single-handedly battle insane odds and triumph. Most familiar of all is his pained look, reflecting deep interior anguish. We are so accustomed to seeing Harrison Ford looking haunted, stoically suffering in silence, that we must wonder if he gets a royalty every time somebody else looks like this. His acting is fine, indeed the acting is fine throughout, but there's nothing unfamiliar or unexpected happening.

Alan Arkin and Robert Forster - both excellent actors - aren't on-screen long enough to help the cause. The plot offers no "aha" twists, which are a staple of films like this. Worst of all, the evil mastermind - always the fulcrum of a thriller - played by Paul Bettany, gets less interesting and convincing as the film advances. He begins well, a dispassionate, cerebral Brit that has done his homework very carefully. But instead of controlled, implied violence - far more powerful in a thriller - he vents his anger impulsively, ironically at his own henchmen. (Poor leadership skills.) In the plus column, how he meets his well-deserved fate is totally satisfying.

"High-tech" computer world drama is hard to present on screen; that said, the film fails on this level as well. It is actually quite low-tech. The movie "Inside Man," starring Clive Owen, is flawed, but at least it's a bank robbery movie fueled by a very interesting, unexpected idea. The same could not be said of Firewall. June 23, 2008

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