Late Review: Firewall

Firewall

Directed by Richard Loncraine
Written by Joe Forte

Warner Bros.

Harrison Ford used to be can't-miss. People born in the late eighties and beyond don't realize what a freakin' huge star this guy used to be. Everything he was in seemed to be gold. Now, he's on a hit-or-miss streak that is mostly miss. Since 1995, Ford has been in two films that have grossed over $100 million and those are Air Force One and What Lies Beneath. And you don't measure a movie's success by grosses alone, but The Devil's Own, Six Days, Seven Nights, Random Hearts, K19: The Widowmaker, and Hollywood Homicide have all been huge disappointments. This released February 10.

In this, Jack Stanfield (Ford) is head of security at a bank, and Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) has been putting Jack under surveillance for some time in order to rob the bank. One day, Cox and his cronies kidnap Stanfield's family, including wife Beth (Virginia Madsen), daughter Sarah (Carly Schroder), and son Andy (Jimmy Bennett). They will be safe as long as Jack helps Cox hack into the mainframe and withdraw $10,000 from 10,000 wealthy clients for a total score of $100 million. Jack's actions, completely monitored by Cox and friends draw suspicion from merging business partner Gary Mitchell (Robert Patrick) and put friend Harry (Robert Forster) in danger.

Well, yeah, this isn't very good. First off, Bill Cox is a total wimp. Jack repeatedly tries to pull fast ones that in the real world would have cost his daughter or son an arm or leg, or both arms and legs, or their lives. This bad guy, who planned on so much, turns out to be one of the weakest, dumbest bad guys in recent memory as we see constant ridiculous action that would likely never take place if someone with brains were behind the scheme.

I feel bad for Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, and the rest of this cast. This is something that should have been done with no-name guys and went straight to video.