flounders
or: how Storm and Wolverine take on Vinnie Barbarino
Note: while I endeavor to review a movie without being a spoiler, Swordfish deserves spoiling for the type of flick that it is. So you are warned.
I can't help wondering how some movies get greenlit. Swordfish is definitely one of them. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when whomever pitched the movie to a producer.
"Here's the story JB. Travolta is a terrorist. We open the flick with him speaking right at the camera about how bad movies are nowadays."
"Given his Battlefield Earth bomb, do you think that's such a good idea?"
"Um, point taken JB. But what happens is we pull the camera back and see Travolta and gang are surrounded with SWAT cops at a bank with hostages."
"Hostages? What happens with them?"
"They're wired with explosives and ball bearings."
"'Ball bearings'? What's up with that?"
The pitch dude describes The Shot, which I'll cover later.
"Wow. That's some shot. What else you got to add to the story?"
Hugh Jackman, you know, Wolverine from the X-men plays a Kevin Mitnick-like computer hacker. He touches a keyboard he goes to jail."
"How're you going to get around that?"
"Go the babe route JB. Halle Berry, who played Storm in X-men, is sent by Travolta to turn Jackman's crank. Oh, and market research tells us that if we add half a mill to Berry's salary so she shows her boobs, we'll add ten mill to the box office take."
"That's cost-effective in my book. What else you got?"
We'll have Travolta and Jackman meet at Travolta's mansion."
"Travolta is a terrorist, yet he's under cover with a mansion?"
"It's a movie JB, not realism. We'll have a big Hugh Hefner party going on. Travolta forces Jackman to prove his skills right on the spot by hacking into a Defense Department computer. Just to make it interesting, Travolta has one of his party bimbos blow him just to throw off his concentration."
"Huh. That's different. So now some actress gets to humiliate herself with her face in Jackman's crotch take after take. What else?"
"Well, there's Sam Shepard playing a crooked senator with his own conspiracy agenda who orders Travolta killed."
"Good. I take it this will be some big action sequence."
"Right JB. We'll have Travolta and Jackman in a badass sports car being chased thru LA by six new black Ford Explorers. Everyone fires machine guns at each other."
As opposed to the realistic thing and using a sniper with a high powered rifle. Just what is Travolta's motivation?"
He's actually a counter-terrorist wanting to strike real terrorists but he needs the cash to finance his op. That's why the movie opens at the bank and the rest is told in flashback."
"So Travolta is a regular Oliver North, but he has no problem killing innocent Americans, the people that he says he wants to defend from terrorists. What else?"
"Halle Berry poses as DEA agent. Plus as many skimpy outfit scenes as possible. Plus the breast baring shots."
"Oh course. What's Jackman's motivation?"
"He wants his little girl back and needs the dough to fight his former wife in court. She's the wife of a porno producer who shoots his tapes right at home."
"Always a good environment to raise a child. Just as 'realistic' as the Ford Explorers. What else?"
"Well JB. Lots of explosions, a bus, a helicopter, and in the end Travolta gets away with it and blows up a terrorist's boat. The end."
"So let me get this straight: your movie with absolutely no moral or ethical center. All the people are scum. The terrorist kills innocent people. And in the end the bad guy gets away with his crimes."
"Well JB, yes."
"Just checking. Here's the money. Now go make it."
Or something like that. As you can tell, not a movie that floated my boat. Call me old-fashioned, but a little triumph of Good over Evil is a good thing in my book. Pulp Fiction dealt with scum, but it was brilliant. Swordfish is no Pulp Fiction.
Having ripped this movie a new one, I will say this: The Shot is totally spectacular. Not to give this baby away, but just say it takes place ten minutes into the movie at the bank hostage scene. It's a "bullet time" shot, as pioneered by The Matrix , only here it's been juiced to the tenth power. Seeing it at home from the coming tape or DVD will not do it justice. So if you could sneak into a Swordfish screening, see it and split; you'll made good use of your time. Suffering thru the whole flick is not.
Movie's suitability for: