Swordfish (Wide Screen) > Reviews > Bit unreal, but Travolta acts very well

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Standard
Soundtrack	Good

Advantages:	good actors, nice story
Disadvantages:	something seems unreal, strange, known

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Plot
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Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is one of the world’s famous hackers. He recently came out of jale where he was the last 18 months. Short after that, Ginger (Halle Berry) comes to visit him: her boss Gabriel (John Travolta) offers Stan 1 Million for programming a worm that cracks the system of a bank Gabriel wants to rob.

Stan is scared of going back to jale but on the other hand he needs money to release his 10 year old daughter Holly (Camryn Grimes) from his exwife (who drinks) and her husband (who produces pornos). At the moment he is not even allowed to see his daughter. So, he makes the deal with Gabriel.

Gabriel, years ago one of the best spys of the CIA, works against terrorists worldwide, he “protects the freedom of the americans” – that means that he sells weapons. He thinks: better they shoot each other than they shoot us. 15 years ago the operation Swordfish was cancelled and on the account of the dummy-company for this operation were 400 Million Dollars. Through interest this money is now worth 9 billion. Gabriel wants to steal this money.

At the beginning, Stan seems to have a normal and fair deal with Gabriel – he programs, Gabriel gives him the money. But Stan gets deeper and deeper into the whole thing – he finds out strange things, the FBI interviews him. Agent Roberts (Don Cheadle) wants him to cooperate. But Stan does’nt – at the moment. The whole story leads to a dramatic climax where a hostage is bombed and Holly’s and Ginger’s lifes are threatened.

What I think
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The film starts with the beginning of the end, goes back to the past the and leads us to the presence after explaining what happened the last days. That is nicely done, even if it is nor a new technique in movies.

The three main parts are casted very well with Jackman, Travolta and Berry. Hugh Jackman typifys the toulsed hacker with dream in his eyes and a dream body… The scenes when he programes and trys to find new ideas, seem a bit unreal (noone programs like that) but apart from that I really liked his starring/ John Travolta acts very good as Gabriel, man of the underground.

The first scene is a monologue about “why in film always the good boys win – and why can it not be different?” by Gabriel. This scene can be understood at the end of the film, which I won’t tell you. But in my opinion it is not really necessary.

In a movie like this, some action can’t be far: the shown action scenes are known: shooting and hunting on the motorway, bomb explosions, at last a flying bus (it hangs on a helicopter). But some scenes are very tenseful and quick, so the film does not get boring.

Summary
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In addition of everything, I can recommend the film. It seems to be difficult to make really good films about computer hackers – the public may be impressed by a few animations and many numbers – but it is just unreal. Ob the other hand, you can not bore the audience with real program code, because they would not understand it… difficult, that. This is the weak link of the film – everything else is really ok.