Firewall Review by Clint Morris
If only Harrison Ford were behind a firewall
his career mightn’t have been compromised by the corrupt servers
who have been FTPing him into all these flunky folders lately. With
each year, comes a new Harrison Ford movie. With each of those films,
the former huge box-office drawcard loses another fan. The
man from the Star Wars and Indiana
Jones franchises needs to either retire or get a career
fix, and quick - we’re talking flatline territory here. Firewall
– for those that know nothing about computers, it’s got
nothing to do with fire fighting or a roaring inferno –
isn’t quite Hollywood Homicide, or K19: The Widowmaker but it’s definitely not The Fugitive or Patriot Games,
and at this point in Ford’s career, it really needed to be. Truth
of the matter is, Ford gives better performances on the red carpet
these days, and that is free. Sooner or later, we’re not going to
want to pay cinema-admission (or the steep $21 parking fee) to see the
one time God of the multiplex. A direct-to-video actioner in blockbuster clothing, Firewall
sees Ford sleepwalk through his role as a veteran security expert at a
bank whose forced into a rather icky situation when criminals kidnap
his family. In exchange for their lives, Jack (Ford) has to help the
ringleader (Paul Bettany) break into the bank’s system and wire a
huge sum into an offshore account. Needless to say, the banker
doesn’t play ball for the whole game. Firewall
is entertaining, I suppose, but only sporadically. The cast work with
the material as best they can, but at the end of the day,
it’s such a soft movie for such a solid ensemble. To waste not
only Ford but also Virginia Madsen, Paul Bettany, Robert Forster,
Robert Patrick and Alan Arkin in such middle-of-the-road-material
should be a punishable crime. It’s the writing that’s
the biggest perpetrator here. Sure, the storyline is stale, but more to
the point, it’s sloppy and full of holes. You should be on the
edge of your seat, but you’re more likely to be laughing at the
nonsensical ‘surprise’ or ‘twist’. If it
wasn’t a Harrison Ford vehicle, one mightn’t be so
disappointed, but it is, and we know he’s capable of much, much
more. Fancy some extra cheese with your pizza tonight?
You’ll most definitely get it here. If you want a reasonably okay
no-brainer though – or, as one of my fellow reviewers amusingly
called it “MacGyver : The Movie” – you could do worse. C’Mon Ford. I still remember, back in the '80s, jumping down the cinema stairs after a screening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
I was alive, I was invigorated and was completely and utterly
satisfied. You were the coolest – and we wanted to be you. If
even just once more – gives us that feeling again. 2.5 out of 5
Firewall
Australian release: 2nd March, 2006.
Cast: Harrison
Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Robert Patrick,
Robert Forster, Jimmy Bennett, Alan Arkin.
Director: Woody Allen.
Website:
Click
here.
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