The film starts off with a bunch of hostages each with large amounts of explosives strapped to their bodies, and a smiling Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) explaining the problems with modern day Hollywood films – a strange combination! When the police decide to get a little too close to a hostage, Shear blows her up (like you do) and says he’ll do the same to every other hostage if he has to – cue flashback, and much of the rest of the film explains how and why the situation occurred. Shear needs a hacker and enlists Stanley Jobson (played by Hugh Jackman) to help him. Now Stanley, who’s just got out of jail, just wants to be a good boy and get his daughter back (who is currently living with her alcoholic mother and porn-producing step-father) but he gets drawn into a web of intrigue involving a half naked Halle Berry (who plays the excellently named Ginger – you can tell it was made in Hollywood, that name would have caused too much hilarity in the UK!), a secret DEA account worth a cracking 9 and a half billion dollars, and Agent A.D. Roberts (played by Don Cheadle) who’s always one step behind.

Well, aside from Mr Travolta (who’s just a little too over the top for my tastes), Hugh Jackman is definitely the star. After appearing in the blockbuster ‘X-Men’, Hugh shows what a good actor he really is by not sounding totally confused by all the techno jargon, and having a believable relationship with his young daughter (played by Camryn Grimes). Halle Berry is very good, but doesn’t really get to develop her character enough (despite the character being the subject of a major plot twist) and no matter how much she got paid to bare her breasts (reportedly $350,000 each!) it is totally unnecessary to the plot and only seems to have been included for all the teenage lads in the audience (I wonder how many DVDs they’ll sell just because of that scene?!) . But my star of the film is Don Cheadle (Out Of Sight, Traffic, Boogie Nights) who is a great actor and just oozes cool, despite the fact he’s playing a police officer, and is worth the cinema ticket alone.

The Matrix has a lot to answer for. Director Dominic Senza is obviously a fan, judging by the 360 ‘bullet time’ shot around the scene of an explosion. The scene is well done, but feels just a bit too much like showing off, especially as the fancy shots are forgotten later in the film. The stunts on the other hand are pretty impressive. Strangely, Senza has come up with a far superior chase scene than in his last movie ‘Gone in Sixty Seconds’ despite that film being all about cars! Also Hugh Jackman’s character leaping off a cliff (followed by Don Cheadle and another worried looking police officer!) is pretty impressive. Add to that multiple explosions, some fairly fancy computer graphics (which are totally unrealistic, but look much better than the real thing) and another good chase scene, and you’ve got some great effects.