Firewall (2006)

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

RICHARD LONCRAINE, OPUS 8

*** 2006. Directed by the British director Richard Loncraine. The family of the head security officer of a Seattle bank is kidnapped by a gang of bank thieves. Average thriller for a rainy sunday night - it seems to rain a lot in Seattle - FIREWALL is just popcorn movie, quickly seen, quickly forgotten. Well, yes, as Mary Lynn Rajskub plays the secretary of Harrison Ford, every time she calls him Jack, I was teleported into a 24 - Seasons 1 - 6 episode. Can we call that originality ? Already forgotten. June 3, 2008

Intense, entertaining, but not very plausible

Firewall is an exciting, entertaining film if you just let yourself go and
immerse yourself into its plot without having to convince youself that its
believable, that anything is possible even though there is a one in 500 billion probability that something like this could happen. This is an identity theft genre film taken to the extreme. There are other films that deal with identity theft that are more believable, for instance The Net, starring Sandra Bullock. I'm naturally cynical, I suppose, but I kept asking myself, how could the bad guy in this film expect that he could possibly get away with this. This plot could have been more believable that if a terrorist group plotted to carry something out like this to fund their other terrorist operations rather than some greedy, murderous fiend who wanted to live a life of luxury on a South Sea Island. Other than that, there were enough elements that kept me interested enough to see it through to the end. However, I doubt that I would ever want to watch it again. Dan Casey May 27, 2008

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