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284 comments in total

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124 out of 173 people found the following comment useful :-
Was good the first and second time I saw it... when it was called "Patriot Games" and "The Fugitive", 6 March 2006

Author: Legendary_Badass from United States

Take a gray-haired Harrison Ford, place him in a business suit and then have him fight someone conveniently wearing all black, and you'd swear you were watching any number of movies from the last fifteen years. Name Ford's character Jack, and you'd think that would narrow it down to a good one. Then again you could just be suckered into seeing "Firewall" which borrows and doesn't add from the Ford post-Jones collection.

In a play-it-safe campaign to show the world that he isn't too old, Harrison Ford is pushed into "Firewall". It's been fourteen years since, "Patriot Games", in which Ford played a man that seemed over the hill then, and here he is today in the same situations. To jog your memory, Ford has been making a living playing essentially the same character in similar situations for years, thanks to the aforementioned "Patriot Games", "The Fugitive", and "Air Force One".

"Firewall", directed by Richard Loncraine, concerns the tale of Jack Stanfield, played by Harrison Ford, being forced through the methods of Bill Cox (Paul Bettany), into electronically stealing from the bank he keeps hackers out of on a daily basis. Cox has a bargaining chip, the Stanfield family. Eventually Cox and his team baby-sit the hostages and circumvent there own success. Jack then hunts them down, and none of this comes as a surprise due to the formulaic structure of the picture.

Some may find "Firewall" a difficult film to dislike because it plays all the clichés. It isn't artistic but rather commercial film-making. Borrowing from every film mentioned above, it uses elements from what worked and safely combines them in a coherent, yet unexciting manner. The action scenes don't come till the end of the picture, and those five minutes offer little more than stunt work put on by actors half Ford's age. This is a vehicle for Ford and as the audience we are supposed to subconsciously see this as a practice run at a fourth Indiana Jones film. With such blatant disregard for a plot and even unique action, you can view this movie as the precursor to "Indiana Jones and the Gated Community".

There is an element that seems realistic and that is the acceptable number of henchmen who are employed by the leader. If they are trying to steal money, then having less people to divvy up the bounty would result in a greater payday. Cox has a modest four men working with him. Unfortunate for both him and the viewer, their lack of common sense is staggering. For example, the family dog Rusty, plays a prominent role when the bumbling fools take him hostage. There should be a logical reason for taking Rusty. With his family already held captive in an unknown locale; I'm sure Jack Stanfield was ready to walk away from them and start a new life. But wait, Rusty is missing too, now I have to comply with their demands. This ultimately destroys the credibility of the screenplay.

Performances in the film are convincing. Virginia Madsen is good as the relaxed wife considering the situation her character is put through. My favorite role was of Paul Bettany as a sometimes caring villain that flips a mean pancake. Despite this, director Richard Loncraine has crafted a film that is best described as what a computer would spit out if the command was: thriller. Everything functions to drive the story on its merry way. Lacking character nuances, rich emotions, and beautiful scenery is OK for a suspense film about robbing a bank. Where "Firewall" betrays the genre is in not providing twists, originality, or an intriguing story.

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62 out of 81 people found the following comment useful :-
A Nutshell Review: Firewall, 15 April 2006

Author: DICK STEEL from Singapore

I was quite surprised that Massive Attack's Angel was chosen to accompany the opening credits, which consisted for mostly CCTV / voyeuristic shots of a team conducting surveillance on the movements of Harrison Ford's Jack Stanfield and his family. I know it's a cool track, but Angel is perhaps becoming one of the more overused tracks in Hollywood pictures already.

But it hints well at what Firewall is going to become. Cliché and overused sequences which will probably make you scream "haven't I seen this somewhere before"? Firewall offered nothing very new in terms of plot outline, as it contains modified scenes from even Ford's own works like Air Force One (the family's survival being threatened, and it's up to one man to save the day) and The Fugitive (the frame up and one man's run from the law). Ford has already become comfortable in the role of an all-American one man hero, that this role offered no surprises at all.

It's basically standard fare with the usual chases and action fight sequences. Stansfield is a VP of (network) security of a bank, and has designed the bank's software, with other operational duties like making sure the bank can respond to external online threats. However, as the saying goes, almost 80% of intrusion are committed knowingly or unknowingly from the inside, and with a head honcho part of the act, you can be sure that he has the know-how to siphon out cash if he wants to.

In comes Bill Cox (Paul Bettany), scheming con man, who with his team of merry men, take Stanfield's family hostage and lapses into the usual psycho-mumbo-jumbo routine. With the family's antics at escaping, you really wonder if Cox, as a villain, has what it takes to call the shots in a hostage situation. While he might have the upper hand, it's his weakness in being ruthless to the hostages that proved his downfall, and make him a very weak cinematic villain. Here's someone who would rather shoot at his own men than to teach them hostages a lesson. Probably he has this noble subscription to "women and children first". And it doesn't help when there's the usual good guy amongst his merry men who offers the family sympathy points.

Word of caution though, for those who might think that this film offers some cool technology on screen. Leave the techno-babble at the door, there's no "firewall" to hack into in the first place, and the "hacking" is actually a no-brainer. And unless the USA offers wireless internet access like everywhere, it's pretty incredible with what a laptop can do in the movie.

It has your expected twists and seemingly smart moments, but nothing that will truly make you go "wow". The fist fight choreography can get pretty intense, however, there's no need to reach the end of the road before you know who's gonna emerge tops. It isn't exactly a bad movie, but one which doesn't even have a single sequence that can redeem this picture from really bad mediocrity.

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78 out of 121 people found the following comment useful :-
Watch it for Harrison Ford, Watch it for Paul Bettany, 26 February 2006

Author: ajaydsouza from India

Went to watch Firewall today. Honestly, inspite of having read a detailed description of the movie I didn't expect much. However, being a fan of Harrison Ford, I decided to give it a shot.

The storyline isn't spectacular or out of the ordinary, so that won't be something you would want to watch the movie for.

What initially interested me was the entire computer security angle. Turned out to be a disappointment as I found the movie to be less on computer security and more of action and drama.

Harrison Ford has been in the movie business for around twenty years (read grown old) and so he fit into the character of Jack Stanfield perfectly. He is well backed by Paul Bettany (who excels in this role) and Virginia Madsen (who plays his wife).

Besides these three, there isn't much acting by the other characters. Some do play substantial roles but being sidekicks don't gather much attention to them.

But, I will be honest to point out that the storyline turned out to be really interesting in the second half. Well, it didn't diverge from the existing theme but Paul's entire plan makes it interesting and makes you appreciate its ingenuity.

One spectacular scene was the fight in the end. I say spectacular because it didn't appear artificial as can be seen in a lot of fights in a lot of movies. This was a fight of a civilian fighting back in desperation.

Enough said. Watch it for Harrison Ford. Watch it for Paul Bettany.

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43 out of 69 people found the following comment useful :-
At least it was better than Air Force One, 12 June 2006

Author: warmtrooper from Berkeley, CA

which ain't saying much. In fact, I think Harrison Ford throws a fire extinguisher at a bad guy in that film, too.

Harrison Ford reprises his role as frantic husband trying to save his family. In this case, he's an IT security manager at a major bank, and some guys kidnap his wife and kids until he can help them rob the place...electronically.

Decent premise. However, instead of doing what any normal IT manager would do: "cooperate", he senses that this won't be good enough, because his family has "already seen their faces". So on this risky hunch alone, the responsible father decides to try and thwart the robbers' plans, leading to several missed chances for the robbers to simply kill his family in retaliation.

This film will appeal to families, and hardcore Harrison Ford fans. But it will be too predictable and unbelievable for most adult suspense-lovers. Paul Bettany is an excellent villain, but because of the bad plot of this movie, he actually loses stature because in order for the film to continue, he cannot instantly retaliate to Ford's foolish actions.

It would have actually been a more intelligent film had Ford's character tried to cooperate with the robbers, but ran into dicey technical problems at the bank with his cohorts (nicely played by Alan Arkin and Robert Patrick). Then, the audience would be given a dose of some tense reality-at-work suspense, instead of the usual family-loves-a hero stuff we get here.

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16 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
One Too Many Of These Kind Of Roles For Ford, 15 January 2007

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Harrison Ford seems to be a guy who likes to play these kind of everydayman-superhero characters. Sometimes they are really good, entertaining films and sometimes they are insultingly stupid. This is case of the latter.

In a nutshell, "Jack Stanfield" (Ford), a bank executive, and his family are held hostage by "Bill Cox" (Paul Bettany) and his group of thugs. They demand he rob $100 million out of accounts through computer hacking, which only he could successfully accomplish.

Along the way we get a number of Hollywood clichés, such as 1 - Ford turning into Rambo-Superman and not only outwitting everyone involved but beating up most of the crooks; 2 - An ending where he does fight the main bad guy who is half his age, takes a beating that would render a human being unconscious at least six times bur Ford keeps going until he wins; 3 - the usual obnoxious kids including a 12-year-old boy who is not the least bit scared, which is ludicrous; 4 - the crooks not killing any of the family, even the dog - which they take with them and is instrumental in saving the family! Yes, these criminals only shoot themselves, never their opponents!! Are you kidding? I could go on with 5, 6, 7, 8, etc., but suffice to say, there are just too many holes in here to make this anything but a film you shake your head at as being ridiculous.

It's almost as believable as playing the President of the U.S. and totally disarming a group of terrorists on an airplane by yourself! Oops, Harrison's been there-done that, too.

In the end - a film that starts out promising but gets dumb and dumber as it goes along.

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38 out of 61 people found the following comment useful :-
Terrific first half, disappointing ending., 27 February 2006

Author: wildman598 from Ottawa, Canada

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.

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18 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
A Forgettable Popcorn Flick, 15 June 2006

Author: schaden freude from United States

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.

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14 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Disappointing, even though my expectations were not overly high, 26 February 2006

Author: marqueemiss from Kitchener, Ontario Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If you're a die-hard Harrison Ford fan, you may be entertained by this movie. I found it hard to pay attention to what little was going on plot-wise and instead was distracted by the incessant rain, the gorgeous house built on an ocean cliff, and wondering why Ford's assistant was paid so poorly that she drove a wreck and lived in a dump. Moreover, since she was paid so poorly (and he had just unceremoniously fired her) why did she risk life and limb to help him? The film had very little humour, minimal suspense and one nasty fight scene at the end. The final shot was cheesy to the max. Harrison, you can do better than this.

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39 out of 68 people found the following comment useful :-
Not terrible..., 22 February 2006

Author: Tbird23 from United States

Overall, an enjoyable movie, until the end when it felt like the director got sick of the movie and said "that's a wrap. everyone leave".

Fortunately, they didn't go overboard with the usual lousy computer scenes you normally see in a movie. In fact, the whole name of "Firewall" is poorly chosen.

If you're looking for a simple pseudo-thriller that follows the typical script, you'll enjoy this.

If you're looking for more than that, look elsewhere.

I give it a 5 out of 10. Had some enjoyable moments, but like I said, it simply ends poorly.

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43 out of 76 people found the following comment useful :-
Couldn't be any Worse!, 12 June 2006

Author: Ed Voorhies (etvetv2001) from Jackson, TN

I'm very upset about the shoddy quality of this movie. It is, without a doubt, the worst that Harrison Ford has ever starred in. Every thing about it is lame, especially the premise itself. This plot (or similar) has been done so many times before that is't tiresome and boring in and of itself. There are two types of movies that I swear from this day forth I will never waste my time watching again. One is the plot where a high school or college basketball coach is enlisted to rejuvenate a losing team, and the other is one in which a CEO or other high level person has their family kidnapped for some kind of favor. We've seen all of these we need. Every subtlety and twist and trick been used, and used again, and overused, so the only possible result for a movie of this theme, if it IS released, is to be boring, predictable, and mundane, which "Firewall" achieves in spades. Please don't waste either your time of money on this disaster.

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