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    Swordfish

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    "Swordfish" stays entertaining the whole way through but the more you think about it, the less the movie makes sense. Actually that’s not right. It’s downright ridiculous. This isn’t a science fiction movie, but it might as well be.

    Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is a master hacker who is approached Ginger Knowles (Halle Berry) and her employer Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) Stanley is forbidden from even touching a computer due to his past cyber crimes, but when they start throwing sacks of money and pointing guns at his head he’s got no choice but to help them pull off a major heist.

    The movie pretends to set itself in a more realistic setting by calling out the mistakes in "A Dog Day Afternoon" (bad move right away, reminding people of another film they’d much rather watch than this one) That’s just a first hint that you’re in trouble if you’re seeing this movie. There are several elements whose realism is questionable or where the plot dictates things to happen, so they do. For instance, objects off-screen aren't seen by the characters until they come into frame (towards the end of the film you'll be really surprised to see a huge and very loud vehicle arrive without warning), investigations aren't pursued despite really high-profile consequences (Gabriel Shear manages to murder several people without ever being questioned by the police despite being under investigation by the FBI) Throughout it seems like characters aren't able to piece together what's going on (but you will be because it’s obvious to anyone with working eyes, or even just one that when you see a suspicious dead body you should pay attention)

    I don’t know what’s going on in terms of tone with “Swordfish”. Are we supposed to cheer for Hugh Jackman's character? On the one hand he's a dangerous hacker who interferes with police procedure, but compared to everyone else he’s a saint! Check out his ex-wife, a harpy who divorced him and then proceeds to marry a porn producer, star in her new husband's films AND forgets to pick up her daughter at school because she gets drunk. He might be an ex-con but the idea that he's having that much trouble getting parental rights is ridiculous when you see how neglectful the mother is so. I finally gave in and accepted him as the protagonist but it feels very forced.

    We also get John Travolta's character Shear, who believes it's morally justifiable to kill any amount of civilians and innocents in order to steal money to kill "bad people". To be fair the people he's ultimately aiming to get are terrorists, but judging from the amount of collateral damage in the film (you'll be happy to know that there are plenty of explosions and they look great) you're going to end up with a lot more dead civilians than dead terrorists. I mean if all you care about is killing people who will blow up others for their cause and you don’t care about casualties, why don’t you just destroy the entire planet? You’ll kill every terrorist for sure that way. Better yet, why don’t you start with yourself?

    This whole insane crusade, the motivation behind Shear's character makes you hate him but “Swordfish” doesn’t realize it’s trying to make you cheer for a leaking bag of poisonous bathroom gas. Shear is given several "cool" speeches (including one where he talks to a member of his crew that's opposed to the idea) about how he's doing the right thing but it's never convincing. What kind of psychopaths do you think we are that we’d be willing to endorse a deranged, murdering gangster-terrorist who will use any means to get what he wants including murder and rape?

    I’ll grant “Swordfish” that despite some silly hacking scenes, I never found it boring. It’s entertaining but it's also very frustrating. The leaps in logic are frequent (particularly towards the end where some characters can foresee things happening when there are way too many factors that could go wrong) and the IQ of your average police officer decreases with every minute. When there's action a lot of energy is generate, the special effects are well done and there are quite a few interesting twists (the character Ginger in particular is one to keep your eyes on) I suppose I should address the fact that Hally Berry appears topless and talks dirty a lot. I don’t know what it is but I didn’t particularly find it sexy. I like her. I don’t like her role in the film some people will see “Swordfish” just for that, I think you can do better considering the internet exists and whatever nasty things you want to see are just a couple of clicks away.

    It's not that "Swordfish" is dull or poorly put together but for everything that's good, there's something else that doesn't work. It looks slick and there’s eye candy present so I’m certain that it has fans out there. I think it’s complete unlikeable nonsense though. (On Dvd, March 3, 2013)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  22.11.2015 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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