Swordfish: Review By slysnide

I didn't seek this out, rather I knew of it for a decade, totally thinking it was about some con man using virtual reality to pull confidence tricks and high stakes crimes. Kind of like "Inception" (2010), but instead of dreaming it'd be virtual reality. First of all, I couldn't have been more wrong. Secondly, I don't know what many saw in this to consider it memorable, for it wasn't like "Audition" (1999) where my expectations built up for a decade, knowing it was a classic, only to be somewhat disappointed since a decade of anticipation obviously won't live up to expectations. Thirdly, this further shows that AMC is going downhill in their selection of films. Seriously, they used to only play real classics on their station, but now they play everything.

At the start, the film uses the neat storytelling formula of showcasing the climax to entice the audience immediately, then flashes back four days to begin what presumably will be an hour long build up back to the moment where the film started. Which actually it was. However, when screenwriters choose to do this, they only do it to enhance an already suspenseful tale, not to create the suspense as Skip Woods did here. Therein lies the problem. After this awesome opening with hostages with bombs strapped to them and swat guys everywhere with the villain in a near impossible situation, there's literally nothing enticing about the following hour or less of the film before you get back to that point. You're basically told that the world's greatest hackers are gathering in LA, and one of them (Hugh Jackman) has been recruited by this mistress (Halle Berry) to the villain (John Travolta) whose philosophy is dished out within a minute. The story behind how his plan to steal nine and a half billion bucks is even possible was also dished out within a minute as 'operation swordfish' with barely any extrapolation on that point. No real reason why such funds aren't utilized or safeguarded past a guy who can hack the account in under a minute. They just go for minimal technical jargon that Joe Schmo will just take at its word without understanding it rather than explaining it in easier terms. I'm not advocating laziness in regards to not reading the dictionary every once in a while, but when you throw random characters at us whom are allegedly the best, then the assumption is made that we're not gonna have any idea what they're talking about anyway, so you might as well simplify it a bit, or make that angle of the plot more interesting rather than a bunch of encyclopedic rhetoric.

For the amoral lead character, a pointless sympathy vote is thrown in via an alcoholic ex-wife with a porn director husband and innocent child who of course loves her daddy more. Pointless because with a character so immoral who's in over his head and has already been shown to be shocked at the villain's villainy in the beginning in a story so shallow already, that it doesn't provide anything. No subplot comes out of it. Not even an emotional undercurrent. Especially since the girl isn't even in enemy hands. It's just one of those action movie logic things where you've just got to assume that the villains are watching you and yours all the time, for no reason at all. Seriously, if ten million bucks isn't enticing enough for the world's greatest hacker when he's so willing to go along with it, despite that his client pulled a gun on him to test his effectiveness at stress levels, then there's no point in throwing in such lacking sympathy votes. Instead that screen time could've been spent explaining why the world's greatest hacker is only wanted for parole violation when he's been spotted with several other excellent global criminals. Especially when the federal agent in question (Don Cheadle) has an implied history with him. Yeah, there's a point in logic unexplored.

Oh, and that bit I just explained, that's about as detailed as it gets. Seriously, the story behind this was just too shallow. A sorry attempt at evading the feds is over within a minute, and the car chase is also over within about three. Those are the only two 'action' scenes throughout before getting back to the climax. Granted this isn't an action film, it wasn't suspenseful either, so it needed more action if no extrapolation on story was going to be given. Even the villain's enabler behind the curtain gets just two minutes or so, with virtually no explanation as to how he gets away with backing this guy. Just way too shallow overall, and had the filmmakers dedicated screen time to expanding on the story's logic then it would've been a hell of a lot more suspenseful. For as unique and suspenseful as the climax is, that's really the only suspenseful part of the whole movie. It's like somebody wrote that scene and needed a story to fill up the minimum runtime for a theatrical release. Just like HB Halicki's original "Gone In Sixty Seconds" (1974) which sported a forty minute climactic car chase, and an hour of lackluster storytelling preceding it.

And of course. when the climax ended it cut to commercial--with ten minutes left on the clock--making it obvious there was one more trick up it's sleeve. For the climax's end leaves you thinking "is that it?" Then of course the twist comes, but rather than being some clever twist pertaining to the villain's philosophy or an attempt at explaining what the hell you just watched more reasonably, it just explains why the end of the climax seemed so lacking. Literally, just based on one of many clever quips by Travolta throughout the film. But just cause it uses that tactic, doesn't mean it was good for it.

So overall, I wouldn't be bored out of my mind if I had to watch it again, but had there been actual depth to the characters, or more realism which would allot a lack of depth, then combine that with extrapolation on key story points to garner actual suspense and maybe director Dominic Sena would have had a shot at making this a good film. For it had potential to be a good Friday night flick. But he failed at almost every readily available opportunity.