Swordfish opens amazingly promisingly.
"Hollywood makes shit!" says baddie
John Travolta. I was quite taken aback at such
a frank admission. Granted, Hollywood didn't
always make shit, but it does now. How the hell
did the scriptwriters get that wonderful line
of dialogue past the faceless corporate Hollywood
suits? Maybe - by getting the bad guy to badmouth
these slimy film corporations - they were hoping
that his words would seem dishonest. Yet his
words resonated with the pure ring of truth.
There then follows the most astonishing explosion
scene I have ever beheld. Fantastic stuff -
even if people are propelled through the air
by the glass-shattering blast wave and then
seem to recover instantly, with scant symptoms
of breathing difficulties, disorientation, earache
or shock, or laceration by flying glass, etc
etc.
Swordfish is an action movie,
with hacking thrown in as an interesting gimmick.
A genius hacker is arrested in LA. Meanwhile,
another hacker is recruited to a meeting with
$100,000 bait. (Even lawyers don't get that
much for a meeting - do they?). If he sniffs
a rat, he is not deterred by the smell. The
movie, rather needlessly, uses his daughter,
not greed, as his motivation. By the way, the
first hacker was called Torvald, presumably
after (the much admired and liked) Linus Torvalds,
inventor of the Linux operating system kernel.
The second hacker was called Jobson - son of
Jobs - Steve Jobs of Apple computer, geddit?
These weird name references were not particularly
apt, in fact they seemed downright odd and my
disbelief lost its delicate suspension and crashed
and burned.
Now this recruited hacker, Jobson, is supposed
to be the best hacker in the world. The best!
And yet he was played by Hugh Jackman, a beefy
action-hero-type. It is nice to see the film
try to destroy the pasty kid in bedroom stereotype
of a hacker - and it is true that professional
hackers do not usually fit in this category
- but I could not buy into Mr Jackman being
a hacker, not for ten million credit card numbers.
Besides, the best hacker in the world would
have no difficulty in obtaining money, so he
wouldn't be living in a trailer park unless
he liked it. And he certainly would never get
caught. (In the movie Jackman had just been
released from jail for hacking offences). You
never hear about the best hackers, they are
invisible.
So this ruined the realism of the movie somewhat
for me. Having said that, Jackman is actually
pretty good: he exudes this gritty look that
his role ultimately requires. He may well end
up as that rare thing, a likeable A-list actor.
But... I didn't buy him tapping away on a laptop.
It didn't feel right. He was muttering stuff
about password scanners and worms but he didn't
seem to have that genuine feel for his subject
that an obsessive hacker (the best are obsessive,
after all) would have.
Travolta was OK as the baddie. But I hate to
think how much his dreadful cult, scientology,
made out of the movies he features in. This
loonie, money-grabbing cult takes a slice of
all their member's earnings, and then uses that
money to sue its critics.
Swordfish is fun, but it doesn't grab you by
the balls.
By the way, I'm writing this in under a minute
with a gun to my head whist receiving a blowjob
from Halle Berry. But the pay is shit.
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spoilers corner
Spoilers!!!!
Warning: this box contains a movie post-mortem analysis that freely gives away important plot twists and details. If you have not yet seen this movie and intend seeing it, avoid this spoilers box until afterwards. Bookmark the page, see the movie, see if you agree with my review then write an arsy comment saying I am talking total b*ll*cks :-)
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That scene during the TVR Tuscan chase
where Travolta stands and shoots in a
crucifixion pose was well done. He made
himself a sitting duck target, but, hey,
it looked good!
How the hell did Travolta and his girl
escape from that sky scraper? How can
it be he survived and yet there was cadaver
that resembled him on that 'copter? Why
didn't he simply kill Jobson, whom, it
was obvious, couldn't be trusted? Why
wasn't the cop suspended for the gross
incompetence of allowing the Torvald hacker
and his lawyer to be murdered so easily?
Would such a cop be given the job of handling
an uberterrorist like Travolta?
How the heckity did Jobson crack a 128
key RSA encryption algorithm in under
a minute on a Del laptop whilst getting
a blowjob? Nice touch, the blowjob though.
How is it that the girl could play dead
after being hanged for over a minute,
without coughing and spluttering? Etc
etc
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There are no more spoilers below this
point, except maybe in any user talkback
comments.
End of spoilers corner
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Travolta says "scientology is shit"
at the end, to neatly complement his astute
observation that "Hollywood makes shit"
at the beginning.
Add your comment to this page
| | | | |
| From: |
John Kato | Subject: | 2001-09-15 03:09:27 |
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| From: |
Vladimir Perovic | Subject: | 2002-01-02 06:39:15 |
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| From: |
Vladimir Perovic | Subject: | 2002-01-02 06:40:35 |
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| From: |
Vladimir Perovic | Subject: | 2002-01-02 06:41:33 |
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| From: |
Vladimir Perovic | Subject: | 2002-01-02 06:41:56 |
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| From: |
Eliahu COHEN | Subject: | 2003-05-01 12:04:15 |
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