Firewall

O, Harrison Ford, what has thy career become? This movie is just plain tired and boring. I feel like I have seen bits and pieces of this film before, namely Trapped with Charlize Theron and Fear with Mark Wahlberg way back when. Briefly, Ford is a computer security expert for a bank in Seattle. He's got the huge house overlooking Puget Sound (just like in Fear), and is targeted by techie thief Paul Bettany to help him steal $100 million from the bank. Bettany coerces Ford's cooperation by kidnapping his family and framing Ford to look like the culprit not only in the robbery, but in a few murders as well. Anyway, the kidnapping is just like Trapped and Fear, the setting is similar to both as well, and the resolution of the story involves genius heroics by Ford, a la Air Force One or any of the Jack Ryan films he did. Tired, tired, tired...

Oh yeah, another plot element they rip off: Bettany wants to steal the $100 million dollars by skimming 10k from each of the bank's wealthies 10,000 customers. Almost sounds like the Office Space plan to use a computer program to steal fractions of cents and redirect them all to one account to generate millions...

Thank god I saw this on HBO, not even wasting a Netflix mailing on it. Even having it in hi-def did nothing to make up for the truly shit quality of this turkey. What the hell has happened to Harrison Ford? Granted, he has never been the best actor on the planet, but normally at his age, actors will begin to take smaller roles in more *serious* films instead of starring vehicles in crap, big-budget productions. I can't remember the last movie I saw with him that even remotely amused or entertained me. Of course I never saw that buddy cop flick with Josh Hartnett...Hollywood Homicide was it? I'm sure that one was awesome...

1 out of 5 Stars