Firewall (2006)

Originally Reviewed

Tuesday June 8, 2006

After four years and one really corny action film called Hollywood Homicide, Harrison Ford is back in the type of role that his post Indiana Jones career became well known for. Harrison Ford plays Jack Stanfield, a family man who lives pretty well off in Seattle as the head of a high-security team at a medium size branch of banks. Everything in his life seems to be going relatively well until he discovers his identity has been stolen and someone has racked up $95,000 in gambling debts under his name, but in the long run the gambling debts turn out to be the least of his problems.

Jack is unaware that his life and the lives of his family are about to be turned upside down. Jack's friend introduces him to Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) who is interested in making a business deal with the two of them, except Bill is really only interested in making a deal with one person, Jack. After the meeting Bill makes his move and jumps into Jack's car holding him at gunpoint. Bill forces Jack to drive home where he discovers his family have been tied up and held hostage. In return for the "safety" of his family Jack must follow Bill's commands or his family will die.

Jack is to hack into the security system he helped to develop and secure and transfer $10,000 from each of the top 10,000 wealthiest clients of the bank into Bill's offshore accounts, for a total of 100 million dollars. If Jack does this, he and his family will set free... or so he says. Of course Jack isn't that gullible to and man willing to do all this would keep his word, so he must devise a plan in which he can successfully transfer the money into Bill's account for a short amount of time without being caught and then save his family from certain death.

Firewall, ended up being a whole lot more enjoyable than I imagined it would have been. It must have been the horrible reviews from people slamming Harrison Ford in his old age, telling him to give it up, that made me rather weary about the overall enjoyment Firewall would produce. Well once again I have to disagree, I found Firewall to a very entertaining film and a breath of fresh air after Hollywood Homicide, which incidentally was also a "homicide" for Ford's career. Critics and viewers alike have their qualms with this film, mainly chastising it for being too similar to Ford's past projects, and yes its true Firewall does show shades films like Air Force One and The Fugitive, but still ends up being very entertaining.

Harrison Ford does a great job and slips back into this most familiar role quite easily, even though at times it's quite clear he's not as young as he used to be. Paul Bettany also provides a quite daring nemesis who can turn from gentlemen to a raging psycho quite fluently. What I liked about this film the most was its speed and unpredictability. For the most part the film moves at a pretty steady pace and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, and it kept you guessing, causing you to believe people close to Jack might be in on it all. Even for being a cookie cutter Harrison Ford thriller, I'd have to admit I didn't find it to be quite so predictable.

In the end, Firewall is a must see film for Harrison Ford fans, while it's not much of a new endeavor him, and at times the fight scenes may seem a little unbelievable and corny due to Ford's distinct age difference compared to that of Bettany, its still quite an enjoyable and entertaining ride, well worth a rent. 

8/10