Swordfish Review
by Michael Redman (redman AT bluemarble DOT net)June 21st, 2001
Live by the sword, die by the electric chair
Swordfish
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 2001 by Michael Redman
** (out of ****)
Timothy McVeigh is dead and the summer action movie season is upon us.
Normally these two statements would have nothing to do with each other. However, following in the steps of "The China Syndrome" and "Wag The Dog", the latest John Travolta vehicle has perfect, albeit unplanned, timing. The two main characters in "Swordfish" wage their own personal illegal war against the evils of the world. Sound like the stories on front pages these past few weeks?
Super-hacker Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is staying away from keyboards these days. Not by choice, he's court-ordered not to do any finger-tapping after serving prison time for destroying an FBI program designed to read anyone's personal email.
Then an offer he can't refuse comes his way. Slick super-rich Gabriel Shear (Travolta) sends his sexy minion Ginger (Halle Berry) to proposition him with the big bucks to help steal billions from a secret government slush fund. Jobson accepts, but only for the highest moral reasons. The money will allow him to regain custody of his young daughter from her neglectful alcoholic porn star mother.
Everything's bigger than life. Shear is "living in a world beyond our world". Jobson is the world's best encryption expert. His ex is so evil that she's probably also selling heroin to children in the slave trade. The explosions are big and mighty. There's more shattered glass than in 20 early MTV videos. A bus crashes through the top floors of a skyscraper.
In fact there's so much going on that you might be tempted to forget there's a plot here. The writers seem to have.
The first 15 minutes are the beginning of a great film. The cinematography is impressive as Travolta delivers an intense monologue about what's wrong with Hollywood films. Soon one of the best explosions seen in the cinema rips across the screen. (So cool is this shot that they show it again later.)
Then another movie sneaks in and takes over. This one is filled with vapid dialogue, heavy-handed scenes, plot holes and a story that could only succeed if peopled with humans who can't see beyond their noses. But most people won't care. It's summer, the action runs at breakneck speed and there's plenty of eye candy.
Films today are struggling with depicting computer programming as exciting. There's nothing visually interesting about typing in front of a CRT. In one scene Jobson has only 60 seconds to break into the Defense Department — with a gun to his head — while being orally raped under the table. In another, he's drinking and prancing around like Wolfman Jack in front of the keyboard. Hackers as the rock stars of the new millennium?
Travolta is always fascinating even in his poor role choices. He has the "Pulp Fiction" character down pat and with slight variations, carries it off time after time. Jackman, the young Mel Gibson, is less interesting but shows some potential. The supporting cast are throw-aways including a wasted Sam Shepard. Berry, the only female role of note, mostly just takes off various articles of clothing (including a topless scene for which she was reportedly paid a half million extra) and looks hot.
The more interesting aspect of the film is hinted at but not explored. Under all the loud noise is the theme of heroes and villains. Some of the characters are black or white but others straddle that gray line. Jobson is probably a good guy who only wants to be reunited with his daughter but he's also a criminal, an ex-con who the United States says is a villain. Shear kills innocents but by the end of the film has motives some people would admire.
In the real world McVeigh is executed for murders committed during his war on what he saw as a corrupt government. His guilt is undeniable as is the heinousness of his actions. But if his plan of starting the second American revolution had succeeded, he might have been viewed as a hero years from now. If he had done the same thing in the Middle East and killed Saddam Hussein along with the civilians, how would we see him?
How much more evil was his bombing than Harry Truman's decision to slaughter thousands of innocent Japanese civilians, not to save lives but, as many historians believe today, scare the Soviet Union? Or the "collateral damage" in Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, the war on drugs or any other war du jour?
If our side kills innocents, it's too bad. If the bad guys do it, they're evil spawns of Satan. But what the hell? It's summertime and we've got bright lights and circuses on the silver screen to watch.
As far as action movies go, "Swordfish" is entertaining enough, but I would have like to have seen the rest of the film that the first 15 minutes began.
(Michael Redman has written reviews in Bloomington since some time in the mid-seventies. Send your email explaining how he's politically naive to [email protected] where there's a slight chance he'll read it.)
[This appeared in the June 14, 2001 "Bloomington Independent", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at [email protected].]
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