Dir. Richard Loncraine, US, 2006, 105 mins
Cast: Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Robert Patrick, Robert Forster, Alan Arkin
Review by Matthew Rodgers
The man who would be "Han" has had somewhat of a lacklustre decade in terms of quality output. Starting with 99’s saccharine coated Random Hearts and leading up to his critical mauling as the Russian submarine commander in K-19: The Widowmaker. His persistence in trying to expand his range by genre hopping is admirable but it’s while watching Richard (Wimbledon) Loncraine’s Firewall that you slowly realise that for all their clichés and plot similarities, there really isn’t anything else like a Harrison Ford thriller.
Situated firmly in the “Friday night popcorn movie” section of the cinematic library, Firewall tells the tale of computer security specialist Jack Stansfield (Ford) who is employed by a prestigious bank to protect their millions from online criminals. When his wife Beth and their two children are kidnapped by (sigh!) another British terrorist Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) he is forced to break all of the rules that he’s spent his life implementing at the bank in order to keep them alive.
Most of Firewall’s strengths are also its weaknesses. The mechanical plot could have easily been lifted from another Tom Clancy thriller and Ford has done the family in peril situation numerous times before (Air Force One, Patriot Games) but familiarity doesn’t breed contempt on this occasion. There is nothing like watching one of cinemas all American heroes kick bad guy ass for 90 minutes, even if Ford is pushing for a pension the action is always believable and the acting sincere.
The set-pieces are all understated by Hollywood standards and they are expertly directed wringing every ounce of tension from Jack’s situation. The films catastrophic undoing arrives in the scripts final twenty minutes when a plot device used as a major catalyst for events to follow is so ridiculous you forget most of the solid fare up to that point.
It is as clumsy as the films themes are subtle, the post 9/11 fear of terrorism in our own homes is raised on a superficial level but never really explored. The terrorists motivations are also never explained apart from their desire for money. This could have been expected in a Schwarzenegger movie from the 80’s but the modern audience demands much more.
Ford’s functional yet familiar performance is what the film ultimately succeeds upon but if the script had allowed for more of the fantastic, but criminally underused Virginia Madsen as his wife it could have been more than the sum of its parts. Madsen was terrific in Alexander Payne’s Sideways and should think more carefully before choosing her scripts because I can only imagine that the character synopsis for Beth read; cry and run, run and cry. Paul Bettany, obviously using the role to raise his profile is also wasted as the clichéd bad guy, that’s not to say that he is bad though as the manipulating, sophisticated Cox.
Regardless of the negativity of certain aspects of this review, if you venture into the multiplex in the knowledge that you are about to watch a Harrison Ford movie following the old template then you will not be disappointed, otherwise I’d wait until Firewall arrives on dvd.
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