Le coupe-feu

First off Harrison Ford is still capable of playing these roles, he certainly did not come off as unbelievable for the most part.

The first hour or so of the movie is top notch and plays out exactly as any good action film should, the bad guys outmaneuvering the good guy at every turn so the audience hates them even more.

Unfortunately the second half of the movie is nowhere near as strong and I believe part of this is because Paul Bettany just does not play a convincing bad ass. He's a good actor, don't get me wrong, but he's far too lenient and soft compared to similar characters from other action movies. There is a scene where Ford and family attempt an escape, only to be foiled by their captors. Following this, Bettany does respond with a nasty act, but I kept expecting him to shoot (non-fatally) one of the family members or beat them with a club or other blunt object. There were also some logic issues that bugged me, but I won't get into them here as I do not want to spoil the film for those who haven't seen it.

Despite what I mentioned above, I found the movie to be well worth the cost of admission and a fun way to spend two hours.

"Jack Stanfield" (Harrison Ford) is a security expert for a bank that has recently merged with another financial institution in another city. This merger requires him to coordinate everything with an executive named "Gary Mitchell" (Robert Patrick) who works for the other bank and is not a very pleasant person at all. This becomes even more difficult when a group of high-tech thieves invade his home and kidnap his wife, "Beth" (Virginia Madsen) and their two children. Their demand is quite simple-either Jack helps them to gain access to the bank's computer in order to withdraw $100 million or they kill his family. And the leader of the thieves, who goes by the name of "Rich" (David Lewis) is quite serious. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be a decent film all things considered. I especially liked the manner in which the director (Richard Loncraine) managed to maintain the suspense from start to finish. On the other hand, I thought that the ending was a bit too unrealistic and could have used a little more imagination. But even so, the film kept my attention and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

This is like "24", it's all phony, but exciting enough so you don't care. You know what Ford is going to do. Having Chloe as his admin assistant even added to the ambiance. The cinematography was very good, and the acting was all standard. It's just, as usual, the bad guy has to have a few idiots working for him to make the story go easier. The dog bit was too much of a ploy to keep the plot moving, totally out of sync with what characters would have done. Bottom line is poor quality of enemies for Ford to deal with, so even though events proceeded apace, they required too much suspension of disbelief for my money. I wouldn't have gone myself, it was just my wife wanted to see it. There was never truly enough of a sense of danger. They should have hurt one of the family more. Even the son's allergy reaction wasn't scary enough. And people would have figured out things at the bank a lot sooner.

As someone with an interest in computers, I was looking forward to the release of this movie for quite a while. Seeing Harrsion Ford in the cast of a movie typically guarantees at least a minimum standard of quality. I couldn't help feeling somewhat underwhelmed by it's progression.

The movie has some positive points that I should highlight first. I had hoped a movie titled "Firewall" would portray accurate use of technology where other computer genre movies such as "Hackers" missed the boat. And for the most part it does, we see VPN, unix terminals, and other real technology set up to deliver what could have been an intriguing story about a techno-heist. There are a few glaring flaws, but generally accurate enough to draw me into a believable and entertaining story.

If the movie had kept with the technology theme for the remainder of it's run, I think it could have been a hit (at least with the IT sect). But it devolves into another mindless chase movie.

If they had fixed the bugs and not applied the 'action flick' patch, this film might have staved off obsolence and had a place in the server room.

I saw that 'Firewall' was coming on TV a couple of nights ago and wanted to catch Harrison Ford in action, as I'm a huge fan of his and I had not seen this. I have to say I was fairly entertained by the film. The plot is not so much different from the other films of this genre, but what stands apart from the rest is Harrison Ford's and the antagonist, Bill Cox's very real performances and some clever twists.

Computer security specialist Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) works for the Seattle-based Landrock Pacific Bank. A trusted top-ranking executive, he has built his career and reputation on designing the most effective anti-theft computer systems in the industry, protecting the bank's financial holdings from the constant threat of increasingly sophisticated internet hackers with his complex network of tracers, access codes and firewalls. His regular life is put into turmoil after his family taken is taken hostage by Bill Cox and his cronies.

Even though most of the story was predictable, that doesn't mean it wasn't entertaining. It has everything you can ask - big explosions, smart thinking actors, great acting (only by Harrison Ford and Paul Bettany). Cox played by Paul Bettany was very unnerving as the calm, cold, collected and clever villain. He was ruthless in killing his own men to make his point. I mean that is fairly common in this genre, still it was pretty good. Jack's repeated attempts to try and save his family along with the money was good to see. You could look at his eyes and you can see how much he loves his family and how scared he is for them and really wants their safety more than anything. The little kid, Andy with the allergy and Jack's secretary, Janet Stone played by Mary Lynn Rajkub are also very good. The climax with the burning car was not so believable. But even so, this is a more than average thriller that you would want to see. A rating of 5.6 on IMDb? I am shocked. Come on people, this is so much better than that. I really enjoyed the movie immensely.

7/10