Saturday, July 15, 2006

Firewall(spoilers)

Seeing as how I have no social life, my father and I headed off to Blockbuster tonight. Our options were fairly bleak- The Pink Panther, New World, Firewall and Annapolis. The only film both of us could even fathom watching was Firewall. I was rooting for New World, but he wasn't having it.




This movie stars Harrison Ford in full Air Force One growling mode and Virginia Madsen, fresh off an Oscar nomination to play the typical damsel in distress. Paul Bettany plays your typical British "I'm a very smart criminal" villain and what happens in the movie is pretty typical for movies like this. The Bad Guys choose the wrong guy to mess with. It rains when it is supposed to rain. One of the bad guys gets a heart and tries to help and gets death as his payment, yet something about the movie actually works.




This is not a giant leap as far as thrillers go. In fact, Cellular was a much better movie, despite having the unfortunate title. However, I found myself wondering if there was an inside man and found myself actually caring about the family in turmoil. Also, the plan of the criminals actually sounded like a solid plan and Harrison Ford's plan to outsmart the evil doer's wasn't wildly improbable, like it so often is in these kinds of movies. To be honest, I am not a Harrison Ford fan save a few trilogies he has been involved in, but I was impressed by his performance. He didn't let the character get terribly out of control until just the right second and even though he has to be nearing senior citizen status, he manages the physical stuff pretty well. I cant give this thing a glowing endorsement, just to say that the trailers made this thing look awful and it turns out it was better than awful, just not better than average.

No comments: