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 wordfish is an action film that is not half as
clever as it think it is. Like all movies made post-Sixth Sense, Swordfish
has a twist ending that is supposed to leave the audience shaking their heads
and going, “Wow, how did they do that?” Of course the actual reaction is
probably more along the lines of, “Wow, that was pretty dumb.”
Swordfish stars Hugh Jackman (X-Men)
as Stanley, a computer hacker in his ‘30s who has the body of a NFL superstar
and the grizzled and handsome face of a movie star. (He doesn’t look like he
spends nearly enough time behind a computer, natch.) Stanley has recently
been released from prison for breaking into U.S. Government computers, and the
FBI, led by Don Cheadle’s Special Agent, is watching him closely.
Cheadle and
his team are also chasing another group led by a former counter-terrorist agent
named Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) who has gone rogue and is determined to steal
billions from a slush fund held by his former employers in order to fight
terrorism his way -- without rules or borders, the way the terrorists do
it. Shear needs Stanley’s hacking skills to get at the money and sends his
best agent, the hot-to-trot Ginger (Halle Berry), to entice Stanley into
joining. Stanley does, but only because he needs the money to get custody of his
daughter, who is living with her junkie mother and her new lover, a porn king.
Before the painfully ridiculous finale, Swordfish is
a mildly entertaining movie. The film opens with Stanley and Shear’s crew
already in the bank where they plan to access the money. The FBI, led by
Cheadle, has already surrounded the bank. The movie then flashes back to when it
all began, and works its way back to the opening scene, which is now at the end
of the film. Get it?
Speaking of the opening scene, director Dominic Sena throws
one of the more memorable hostage-rescue-gone-bad at us in recent memory. The
scene features a bank hostage strapped with explosives that are rigged to
explode if she walks too far from the bank. When the hostage is rescued and
forced away from the bank, an explosion ensues and Sena gives us a literal
360-degree view of the explosion, showing us every angle of flying bodies,
debris, and exploding cars. It’s the best scene in the whole movie, and it’s
quite breathtaking in execution. That alone is worth the price of admission.
John Travolta is making a fine career playing charismatic
bad guys, and boy does he do it well. His Shear is just as charming as his
previous villain roles in Face-Off and
Broken Arrow (both John Woo
movies, by the way). Shear isn’t that bad of a guy, he’s just willing to go
further than his employers in order to finish the job. His ultimate motive is to
steal enough money from the U.S. Government that he and his team can wipe out
the terrorists wherever they hide; strike at them when they least expect it; and
all without restrictions or “rules.” He’s right, because the terrorists
don’t play by the rules. Look at 9/11/01 and New York City. These people are
animals, and Travolta’s Shear is willing to play it their way to destroy
them, even if it means he has to kill a couple of dozen innocent people who
wanders into his target sight. In a way, you can see that he’s right. In a
cold-blooded, methodical way, of course.
Hugh Jackman’s Stanley is not all that interesting.
Forget that he doesn’t look anything like a hacker, or that the “hacking”
sequences look more like someone playing a video game than actual computer code
cracking. Like all movies dealing with computer hacking, directors are forced to
use extreme measures to portray the hacking sequences as more interesting and
exciting than they really are. That’s the price of having a visual medium like
film trying to show something as boring as a nerd hunched over a keyboard
staring at a glowing screen for hours on end. Needless to say, computer hacking
sounds like a good concept in pitch sessions, but execution is another matter
entirely.
Swordfish is written by Skip Woods, who seems to be
trying too hard to be “cool” and “hip.” The movie relies on its visuals
as supplied by director Sena and cinematographer Paul Cameron than its uninteresting
plotting. Even the brief interruption in linear storytelling is not that
creative since it’s been done to death post-Pulp Fiction. Woods does give us one other creative scene. In it, Stanley
is sitting on a chair and given a minute to hack into a security system, all
while a gun is pressed against the side of his head and a woman has her head in
his lap. Talk about pressure! Or is that ecstasy?
Co-star Halle Berry, who was reported to have been paid a
handsome sum to expose her breasts, looks good in tight, thigh-hugging clothes.
Other than that, she really doesn’t do much except provide the film’s eye
candy. The rest of the cast flashes on by, including Cheadle, who has the
thankless role of that generic law enforcement guy in charge of a hostage
situation who also has to chase after that bad guy who isn’t all that bad.
Blah.
The ending, of course, is grossly beyond the realm of
possibility. Then again, much of Swordfish is up for grabs when it comes
to common sense, so I suppose the logic behind the film’s ending isn’t so
hard to swallow when considered within that framework. Swordfish is not
all that exciting or hip, just barely serviceable. Fortunately, it has a killer
opening scene.
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