Great Film: Firewall
A Nutshell Review: Firewall
I was quite surprised that Massive Attack's Angel was chosen to
accompany the opening credits, which consisted for mostly CCTV /
voyeuristic shots of a team conducting surveillance on the movements of
Harrison Ford's Jack Stanfield and his family. I know it's a cool
track, but Angel is perhaps becoming one of the more overused tracks in
Hollywood pictures already.
But it hints well at what Firewall is going to become. Cliché and
overused sequences which will probably make you scream "haven't I seen
this somewhere before"? Firewall offered nothing very new in terms of
plot outline, as it contains modified scenes from even Ford's own works
like Air Force One (the family's survival being threatened, and it's up
to one man to save the day) and The Fugitive (the frame up and one
man's run from the law). Ford has already become comfortable in the
role of an all-American one man hero, that this role offered no
surprises at all.
It's basically standard fare with the usual chases and action fight
sequences. Stansfield is a VP of (network) security of a bank, and has
designed the bank's software, with other operational duties like making
sure the bank can respond to external online threats. However, as the
saying goes, almost 80% of intrusion are committed knowingly or
unknowingly from the inside, and with a head honcho part of the act,
you can be sure that he has the know-how to siphon out cash if he wants
to.
In comes Bill Cox (Paul Bettany), scheming con man, who with his team
of merry men, take Stanfield's family hostage and lapses into the usual
psycho-mumbo-jumbo routine. With the family's antics at escaping, you
really wonder if Cox, as a villain, has what it takes to call the shots
in a hostage situation. While he might have the upper hand, it's his
weakness in being ruthless to the hostages that proved his downfall,
and make him a very weak cinematic villain. Here's someone who would
rather shoot at his own men than to teach them hostages a lesson.
Probably he has this noble subscription to "women and children first".
And it doesn't help when there's the usual good guy amongst his merry
men who offers the family sympathy points.
Word of caution though, for those who might think that this film offers
some cool technology on screen. Leave the techno-babble at the door,
there's no "firewall" to hack into in the first place, and the
"hacking" is actually a no-brainer. And unless the USA offers wireless
internet access like everywhere, it's pretty incredible with what a
laptop can do in the movie.
It has your expected twists and seemingly smart moments, but nothing
that will truly make you go "wow". The fist fight choreography can get
pretty intense, however, there's no need to reach the end of the road
before you know who's gonna emerge tops. It isn't exactly a bad movie,
but one which doesn't even have a single sequence that can redeem this
picture from really bad mediocrity.
Cast
- Bill Cox played by Paul Bettany
- Jack Stanfield played by Harrison Ford
- Gary Mitchell played by Robert Patrick
- Arlin Forester played by Alan Arkin
- Beth Stanfield played by Virginia Madsen
- Sarah Stanfield played by Carly Schroeder
- Andy Stanfield played by Jimmy Bennett
