FIREWALL

Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Alan Arkin, Virginia Madsen

"Everything he loves is about to be used against him"

The plot of this film has a typical mediocre storyline. Bad guys invade main character's house to take his family hostage. They will be used as pawn for main character to do some criminal activity on their behalf. In this case, he must access the main server of the security system of the bank where he works. Then transfer loads amount of cash to bad guys offshore bank account. This being the 21st century, criminals are now cyber thieves, hackers who steal virtual cash as opposed to actually holding up a bank and making do with heavy bags filled with bulks of cash. Of course, complications will arise. Main character won't stop at anything to get every single member of his family in one piece. Even if it means main character is huffing and puffing and can barely kick ass, he accomplishes the task. Hurrah happy ending. You stretch your arms above your shoulders. Big yawn factor.

Harrison Ford should really think of making movies where he doesn't have to physically tackle bad guys. Somehow, the thought of him reprising his Indiana Jones character makes me cringe. In "Firewall" he is the VP of Security of a bank yet most of the time, he is ineffectual. As a father whose family is under grave threat, he takes a pretty long time to figure out what to do. It almost comes across as if he doesn't really care nor value the lives of his wife and kids.

The only good thing about this movie was Paul Bettany. His portrayal of Billy Cox as a polite hostage taker with a mean streak of character embedded in his personality was pretty plausible. It didn't hurt either that he has a wicked accent. But I hope he doesn't get typecast as a villain in all his forthcoming movies. He has the potential to be a good leading man like his role in Wimbledon (although Kirsten Dunst as his leading lady totally ruined it for me). The movie about a has been tennis pro which was also directed by Richard Loncraine.

I'm relieved I didn't catch this film in the cinemas or else I'm pretty sure I would have fallen asleep. I also know the moment I walk out of the theater as the end credits roll by, I would have forgotten about it almost immediately. Except in this case I am now stuck with an image of the aged and anguised face of Harrison Ford trying his darnest best to rescue his family from the bad guys. Ugh!