Gabriel Shear is supposed to be a wealthy criminal who
lives above the law and can do just about anything he wants (including shooting up half of
downtown Los Angeles without raising the eyebrows of the LAPD). Hugh Jackman is Stanley
Jobson, a convicted computer hacker that Shear hires to help with a big heist. Rounding
out the lineup is Halle Berry as Ginger, Shear's sexy sidekick who helps coerce Jobson
into helping with the job.
Director Dominic Sena delivered the woefully bad Gone in Sixty Seconds last
year. Six years prior to that, he gave us the outstanding but rarely seen Brad Pitt
vehicle Kalifornia. He's a guy who obviously likes action and uses every excuse to
give us some, even when it's not warranted. Let's face it, with plots involving computer
geeks, there's just not much excitement in punching keys on a keyboard. So, to beef up the
action, Sena gives us gunfights and explosions, whether they add to the story or not. And
in case excessive violence isn’t enough, he throws in some meaningless sex, such as
topless Halle Berry (not that many men will complain about that, mind you).
What's worse than the gratuitous sex and violence, though, is the nonsensical
situations. For example, most people are left scratching their heads for a few moments
when they accidentally leave their Caps Lock key on and find they can't sign into Windows.
Rebooting your PC takes a minute or two by itself! However, here we're supposed to believe
that a guy like Shear, who hasn't touched a computer in at least a couple years, can break
past the world's most sophisticated security systems in less than a minute -- systems that
were designed by people as skilled as himself. I used to work in the computer industry,
and it takes longer than that to find a new command in the user’s manual when they do
a software upgrade. And then there is the whole unnecessary reliance on talking about
128-, 512-, and finally (gasp!) 1024-bit encryption, as if that builds the suspense even
one iota or causes anyone to believe that it will deter our hero. The film's not only
unnecessarily violent; it's foolish and insulting to one's intelligence.
Up front Swordfish promises to give us more than the usual Hollywood crap, and
it does so for all of five minutes. After all that, it's a slow and steady skid downhill
that ends with a *1/2 rating.
Swordfish
has a clever opening where John Travolta (who plays Gabriel Shear, the movie’s main
villain) explains to a couple of his colleagues exactly what is wrong with most Hollywood
movies. "They make shit," he says, explaining that movies lack
"realism." Following this conversation is a great opening action scene that
further reinforces that we might just be in for something far above the usual
action fare. However, after that first few minutes, Swordfish forgets all its
promises and spirals downward into, ultimately, nothing more than stupidity and shit.
Realism? Hardly.