Swordfish Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)July 10th, 2001
SWORDFISH
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Gabriel Shear expounds on what's wrong with Hollywood - not enough realism. An admirer of "Dog Day Afternoon," he believes that Sonny should have ruthlessly blown away his hostages, gotten his bus to an awaiting plane, and walked away. As the camera pulls back, we discover that Gabriel's in the midst of an Al Pacino moment and he's prepared to follow the agenda he just laid out in "Swordfish."
"Swordfish" opens with a bang, with the newly slimmed down Travolta sporting the most villainous hairdo since Sam Jackson's in "Unbreakable," riffing on Al Pacino like he hasn't since "Saturday Night Fever." He's got hostages rigged out with C4 and ball bearings 'like the world's biggest Claymore mines,' and when the FBI interferes, one hostage sets off a firestorm that looks like a 360 degree shot from the British nuclear holocaust film "Threads."
Now settle down for the mundane and pedestrian as the film flashes back to the preceding four days.
Skip Woods' script features high tech espionage and an attempt to keep the audience guessing via the eyes of Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman, "X-Men"), a hacker extraordinaire who's gone straight after a jail stint. Stanley's offered $100K by Gabriel's colleague Ginger (Halle Berry, "X-Men") to just meet with the man. Of course he can be tempted, as his beloved daughter is in the custody of his alcoholic ex-wife (Drea de Matteo of HBO's "The Sopranos"), now married to a wealthy pornographic filmmaker. He takes the $10 million assignment to create a worm that will divert a $9.5 billion DEA slush fund (code named Swordfish) to multiple accounts funding Gabriel's anti-terrorist terrorism. FBI Agent Roberts (Don Cheadle) tries to tail Stanley and a rigorous foot chase follows. A corrupt Senator (Sam Shepard) tries to have Gabriel killed and a high speed car chase scene ensues. This is pretty much all just filler to get us back to where we began.
With a tip of the hat to "Dog Day Afternoon" again, Gabriel gets his bus, but the twist is that he has it airlifted by a Sikorski helicopter (Gabriel makes much of misdirection). While one must admire the stunt crew who really flew a bus through Los Angles skyscrapers, much of this segment seems borrowed from the likes of "True Lies."
Travolta does really good bad guy - a return to his "Face/Off" form. Young soap actress Camryn Grimes makes Stanley's daughter Holly intriguing. The rest of the cast has little to do and makes little impression.
"Swordfish" just doesn't live up to its protagonist or do justice to his mind games, but that incredibly complex opening segment and a cool, sleek Travolta almost make it worthwhile.
C
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