Review: Firewall

Posted by: Tom Milroy  •  February 10, 2006 @ 11:59am

Filed under: Reviews

Oh how the mighty have fallen! Other than a hefty cheque, what would possess Harrison Ford to make this movie? This has all been done before, and a lot better.

Ford plays Jack Stanfield, a banking executive in Seattle. His wife Beth is played by Virginia Madsen (Harrison is 63, Virginia is 42 â€" we'll let it go this time). Because Jack is a whiz with computers, he can get just about anything he wants.

Paul Bettany, who plays a great bad guy, wants 10 thousand dollars from the bank's top 10 thousand accounts. To make it happen, he keeps Beth and the two kids hostage in their home, which Beth designed, because she's an architect. To show the audience just how evil Paul Bettany's character is, he kills one of his own guys.

I'm not ruining anything by telling you Firewall has a happy ending. The point is: all of this was covered much better in Roman Polanski's Frantic in 1988. You remember the star of that movie don't you?

Perhaps Mr. Ford has made too many really good movies, so we keep comparing him to those. At least we have Indiana Jones 4 to look forward to.