Sat 29 Dec 2012
SWORDFISH. 2001. John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, Sam Shepard, Vinnie Jones, Camryn Grimes. Director: Dominic Sena.
As a recently released felon, famed computer hacker Stanley Jobson (Jackman) is recruited by the beautiful and alluring Ginger (Halle Berry) to work for the mysterious (and ruthless) Gabriel Shear (Travolta). Needing money to help regain custody of his young daughter (Camryn Grimes), Stanley accepts, and during the rest of the movie he learns to regret his decision, many times, over and over again.
This is one of those movies where you are better off not asking questions and sitting back to enjoy the ride. If, that is, you are not bored with watching someone typing at a keyboard and pretending they are breaking into various money accounts scattered around the world. The less-meaningful (but visually far more spectacular) action that takes place is largely confined to a mini-prologue that works about as well as anything in the movie (with a bank under siege with hostages wired to blow up) and in the last thirty minutes or so, when all of the safety latches are set loose.
Lots of large-scale explosives going off, in other words. Cars careening around busy city streets and smashing into each other, large guns being fired and causing all kinds of havoc, and tons of other vehicles of several makes and models veering out of control and smashing into tall buildings and on several different levels. That still leaves an hour to fill, which of course does not mean there are not plenty of bad guys willing to do all kinds of bad things in those remaining sixty minutes.
Travolta and Jackman have the good parts, and both do well in them, with Travolta taking (in my opinion) top honors as a truly Machiavellian mastermind, over the top and subtly clever at the same time. Amazing. (Unfortunately, with the need for pyrotechnics to keep the action crowd happy, “over the top†seems to prevail, more often than not, over common sense.)
This following statement may seem to be totally contradictory, or maybe it’s just me, but Halle Berry appears too aware of herself to be truly sexy, but those commentators who have described her much-maligned topless scene as “gratuitous†should watch the movie again.
Or if not, at least the ending. (Think subtle.)
December 30th, 2012 at 5:05 am
Topless ? American topless, evidently .
The Doc
December 30th, 2012 at 11:17 am
This may head the comments off in a direction I may not have anticipated, Doc, but is there a difference?
December 30th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Topless means, you see the breasts . In Berry’s case an attractive thought . In the scene, you see the woman in underwear. WITH a top on. So what about is anybody getting agitated, Steve ?
The Doc
December 30th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Commentators who dub this scene as ‘topless’ probably think something casual to wear means full plate Armour .
The Doc
December 30th, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Oh, I see. I led you off into a land of lost anticipation. The video I included does not contain the notorious topless scene. You’ll have to turn Safe Search off and Google “swordfish halle berry nude” to see what the people who watched the movie saw.
I’m not sure, but if there is nudity in any YouTube video, it’s artfully clipped and awfully brief.
December 30th, 2012 at 8:27 pm
You can’t turn Safe Search (what a stupidity, anyway !) off, anymore.
All you get is ‘moderate search ‘ huhuhu,and you have to really work to find anything interesting on google .
I’ll give it a shot. Berry in full armour- America’s idea of illicit movies .
I hope someone starts a GOOD search engine, and this thingy goes Chapter Eleven !
The Doc
January 1st, 2013 at 9:34 am
YouTube has some nudity to it, but isn’t yet as free with that as the likes of DailyMotion.
And, of course, Berry’s better performance in MONSTER’S BALL was augmented by more of her on view…but, yes, she’s always a self-conscious actor, which in certain roles (such as BALL and the Dandridge biopic) works for her. And some things, such as the CATWOMAN script, couldn’t be saved.
August 8th, 2014 at 11:44 am
This movie can be summed up as: lots of very cool action scenes (fans of both bullet time and explosions will really enjoy this), a lot of style, and a standard implausible plot. This movie is very entertaining if you like non-stop action in a cool high-tech environment.
The ingredients are pretty standard. There’s a stylish kick-ass villain (Travolta) with a plan, being a high-tech bank robbery. This is all garnished with lots of weapons, technology, car chases and beautiful women. This movie really delivers on the action front, I don’t think there’s any ‘quiet’ scene that lasts more than 2 minutes. It also contains the now standard implausible hacking scenes, where getting into the computer system of a bank involves solving a kind of Rubik’s cube on your computer screen. I hope you’re not offended by product placement because a certain computer brand is quite prominent when IT hardware is involved in this movie. But it’s by far not as obnoxious as in “I, Robot”.
The filming is top-notch, unlike some other movies you can actually see what’s happening in the action scenes (which is sometimes due to the amazing slow-down effects in some scenes). Unfortunately the entire plot becomes quite thin when the movie is stripped of all this action and style. However, it works. The ending is rather vague, as if room was left for a sequel without making it too painful if there wouldn’t be one after all.
Overall I would say this is a pretty OK movie, but don’t expect the best cinema ever.
August 8th, 2014 at 1:02 pm
Susu
You make me want to see it again!