SWORDFISH
Released: June 8, 2001
Redeeming himself for the utterly stupid "Gone In 60 Seconds", Dominic Sena gives us a muddled yet entertaining action ride that, while fun to watch at the moment, probably won't last long in people's memories. John Travolta is back in a hit film after two horrible dogs ("Battlefield Earth" and "Lucky Numbers"). He plays Gabriel Shear, who is some kind of bad ass terrorist out to blow things up. In actually, it appears Shear is simply a well-funded bank robber. To rob banks with worthy returns you need to do it in the cyber world so Shear hires a bad ass hacker dude played by "X-Men" vet Hugh Jackman to help steal the money via the computer networks. Halle Berry, whose character is never clearly explained, is good as the woman who directs Jackman on his way to hacking into the bank's computers. Whether or not she actually was paid $500,000 to bare her boobies is another story but at least Sena used her in the movie as opposed to ignoring Angelina Jolie in the turdfest "Gone In 60 Seconds". Don Cheadle stars as a bad ass FBI agent but like many of the characters in this movie, don't seem to be too concerned about ethics or logistics. But then, this is a Summer action pic - what else would we get other than silly illogical situations? There are many stupid plot devices and the audience is expected to buy a lot of improbable scenes but ultimately we are given a decent Travolta actioner and for our troubles we get to oggle Halle Berry's mammeries. There is a underexposed subplot regarding Jackman's daughter, whom he is unable to see due to custody arrangements and his drunken pornstar ex-wife that exists only to serve basic plot points for Jackman's exit from the plot close to the ending. It could be worse - you could be forced to watch "Gone In 60 Seconds" again.
107 Minutes
Warner Bros.