By Jake Dee
Director: Richard Loncraine
Starring: Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany
Released: 2006
What has become of Harrison Ford? Han Solo, Indiana, Rick Deckard, I mean the guy was the 80s quintessence of cool, bad ass on screen personae. I bet if one looks hard enough, they can trace the roots of his downfall right at that cutesy little picture where he’s rolling around in the water with Man, I mean Anne Heche. Is it Flockhart? Could it be Ally McSteal straight draining every last drop of artistic juice from Harry’s being? Maybe he’s simply too old to read scripts anymore, and has to trust the judgment of some dollar driven agent, or better yet his children. Maybe it’s all borne out of pure fright, Ford not wanting to risk his own bankability and therefore continues to play it safe as a movie star more rather than branching out as an actor. The days of Blade Runner and The Fugitive have long since been rear viewed (but to be fair, Ford’s always been more an action/adventure type figure, the dramatic stuff only occasional). Here, Harrison takes on corporate criminals in Richard Loncraine’s Firewall.
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Ford plays Jack Stanfield, a bank security expert and all world techno guru. He’s got the cushy home life, the beautiful house, wife and two kids, all of it. Early on we see how cozy they are, the extent of their problems tipping at son Andy’s (Jimmy Bennett) malfunctioning remote control race car. Things are pretty good for the Stanfields! That is, until Jack shows up at work, where he discovers a $95,000 gambling debt that has mysteriously appeared on his personal account. He confers with his boss Harry (Robert Forster) and colleagues Arlin (Alan Arkin) and Gary (Robert Patrick), all of which warn Jack not to worry, Harry insisting he’ll “clean it up.” Then Jack takes an unscheduled meeting with a suspicious looking gent known as Bill Cox (Paul Bettany), discussing new security plans and the like regarding the bank.
Back at casa de Stanfield, Jack’s wife Beth (Virginia Madsen), Andy and daughter Sarah (Carly Schroeder) get a knock at the door, thinking it’s the pizza man. Wrong! A band of wannabe thugged out hackers break into the house, tie the wife and kids down and hold them captive until they can get a hold of Jack. Turns out these guys are intent on holding Beth and the kids hostage, demanding that Jack crack his impregnable bank security system and funnel 100 Million dollars into five different offshore accounts. Bill Cox, if that is his name, more or less ring leads this gang of white collar criminals; holing the family up in their own beautiful home. Scenes shift back and forth between the house and the bank, mostly with Jack trying to navigate this arduous task under the noses of his co-workers. We learn Jack’s boss Harry is involves in the scheme, it finally dawning on jack that he has to take matters into his own hands. At one point, the family tries for an escape; Jack sprays the perpetrators with a fire extinguisher. The family goes nowhere!
Director Richard Loncraine does all he can to avoid the feel of a typical TV police drama, even being as bold as to cast Mary Lynn Rajskub straight out of 24. Nice work sir, now instead of feeling like a bad movie, it feels like a bad TV episode to boot. Poor Harrison, he seems to be stuck in another Clancy adaptation, his surname might as well be Ryan instead. Most of his acting here is internalized, but he looks bloated full of bad gas, wobbling around the whole time in need of a strong laxative. For f*** sake get the man a fiber bar, some Muselix, something. It’s pretty hard watching Ford become a laughable parody of his own masculine image. He’s like John McCain!
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To be fair, Harry’ still doing stunt work, he takes a few bad guys down is some hand to hand combat reminiscent of a WWF reunion tour. I’m still waiting for Debiossi and Macho Man Savage to pull a curtain call! No, but really…watching Harrison Ford run these days is like watching a drunken sailor stumbling after a barge that just took launch. He’s like a pirate with a peg-leg doing the “yo-ho-hum and a bottle of rum” around a poop deck. Yeah, can’t wait to see a 65 year old Indy in diapers kick nursing home ass in the 4th installment this summer. Color me amped up, suckos!
It’s clear where the bulk of the films budget went; to Harrison Ford’s salary. Good lord, deficiency in almost every other area of the movie can only be explained by the absence of money to pay top flight talent. Take Madsen’s role, for example. She has a throw away part, adding zero to the movie as a typical wife in distress. This is not her fault I’m sure, more in the screenplay, but at least she got to say she worked with Harrison Ford, right? Arkin and Forster have even less to work with, Bettany I suppose has the juiciest role. This is a forgettable pop corn flick, and given the fact that Ford has about more clout than anyone outside maybe Tom Cruise or Clooney these days, you’d like to see him choose his projects a little more judiciously. Hate to say it, but how much time do you think you have left Harry?
Favorite Part: Not sure I have one.
The Overall Dee-Cision: Don’t Watch It!
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