Firewall

There are several inherit problems when you invest a film’s suspense
budget into a plot centering on technology. Often times the film
becomes dated before it is released. More often than that though,
you’re banking on the level of audience intelligence to understand
whats going on, and better yet believe it when they don’t. Yet another
issue comes up when filmmakers just start making crap up that stands
out more than any single event in the movie.

Such is the case with Firewall. I honestly didn’t expect too much going
in, but being a fan of Harrison Ford, I figured it had SOME merrit.
Ford plays Jack Stanfield, the VP of computer security for a
multinational bank, who is knee deep in a merger and concerned with
internet security. Jack has been targeted by a group of high tech bank
robbers who hold his family hostage and force him to break into his own
bank to snake a cool hundred million.

The plot is a tired one, seen dozens of times in film and on TV.
There’s a couple bits of action here and there culminating in a hand to
hand fight that ends the movie, but there simply isn’t enough to
classify it as action movie. Nor is their enough suspense or thrills to
classify it respectively. What really kills things though is the
product placement. At one point Ford’s character rips apart a fax
machine, somehow connects the components to his daughter’s iPod and
turns the whole thing into a portable scanner and back again. “10,000
songs, 10,000 account numbers, whats the difference?”. Apparently
nothing. Most people won’t understand the techno-babble used in the
movie, but those who do will find it utterly ridiculous. Relying on a
GPS pet collar as a plot point is NOT good writing.

Firewall will likely end up being the movie you’re mildly curious about
seeing on cable when it comes out. It’s good to see that Harrison Ford
can still hit his marks as an action hero (of sorts) in this movie, but
it might make you question his choice in scripts.