IvanF's Cut and Paste, No-Name Theatrical Review of Firewall 2006...

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"Goddam, it's just been so long since I've seen this film in theatres, that I literally blanked it from memory...

... and if that doesn't say something about the quality of this movie? Then I don't know what will...

To be honest? The only thing I really do recall right about now, is what I noticed a couple of minutes after I had left the downtown theatre that night...

There was a couple walking on the opposite side of the street from me. I was in the downtown financial sector at the time. So I suppose if it wasn't for this film? I wouldn't have even had noticed the 80 year old rich man with the 20 year old blonde gold-digger draped across his shoulder...

... sigh, as Ali G might say?... what I would give to be in his shoes... and in his woman, but I digress...

The thing is, I couldn't help but think of Harrison Ford as soon as I saw this old has-been trying to actually act natural with a fucking young bitch on his arm. It just didn't look right, you know?...

And something didn't feel right about Harrison Ford's performance in Firewall either. I mean, if an award has go to the actor who simply won't let go of his past successes with action movies over a fucking decade ago, then it'd definitely be a tough race between Ford and ol' Gov'ner Ahnold...

Air Force One was perhaps the last Harrison Ford action movie that I actually enjoyed, and I only did so because it was both smart and completely stupid at the very same time. I was hoping for more of the same from Firewall, but the movie was just too schizophrenically dumbass, even for my particularly and peculiarally IQ-absent tastes...

The first half of the film seemed like it would actually seem intelligent, with some odd-ball but actually somewhat realistic methods of robbing the computer vault of the bank that Ford belonged to. Some have questioned whether an iPod can actually be used to store bank records and crap like that, and there's absolutely no question that an 80GB version can. Hell, I've actually use my brother's goddam old MP3 player myself as a backup hard drive for the past five years, don't you know...

The first hour or so of the film was not a bad thriller, with Paul Bettany proving to be a decent though cliche villain in the end. It was the simple little things he did that seemed effective at first, like offering the stupid kid some cookies that potentially could have fatally allergic nuts or whatever sort of crap...

Some of the other villains didn't do so badly either. It was over-the-top for Bettany to go and off one of his own men just for screwing up at one point or another, but at the same time, at least you could almost feel like that was a turning point for the rest of the hired goons. Some of them started to look like they were second guessing their place there, others looked like they were showing signs of guilt. They didn't seem all that one-dimensional anymore. Not at that point, at least...

And except for the pure innocent stupidity of the son, the rest of the family wasn't so bad either. Virginia Madsen was just a prop in the background, but even she got a good moment or two in when she tried to stage her coup in the garage... And the daughter, whatever her name was? Her constant teen angst definitely did grate on the nerves, but for the most part, she simply just froze there as the pretty face. And that's all I ever want from a fucking teen in a movie...

I thought that Firewall had some potential at first, at it really did have some decently terse scenes. Paul Bettany and Harrison Ford did play off of each other in decent ways, such as the force firing of the bank secretary, whatever her name was... Hell, even the switching of the pen cameras provided some sort of entertainment factor to the bloody hell movie. As Harrison Ford still definitely can provide the acting goods and chops, whenever he's trying to be a cerebral character and not the fucking action hero of the goddam flick...

Why the fuck did Paul Bettany, after proving that he's a ruthless killer by sniping one of his own, decide to just trot Harrison Ford's family away, safe and sound in a fucking minivan, to his fucking evil lair? Why didn't he just kill even one of them over the phone, just to prove his fucking point?... Instead, he does the most boneheaded thing possible, playing the James Bond English villain and just assuming that framing Harrison Ford would all work out just fine and jim dandy. He leaves one fucking inept bodyguard to kill Jack Stanfield when he had the chance, and then just assumed all would go according to plan? WTF?...

That's exactly when this fucking film turned into the dumbest goddam action movie I have ever seen in my life. It literally consisted of Harrison Ford, recruiting the fucking bank secretary that he fired, to follow the GPS scent of his dog and fucking beat the living crap out of everyone involved... I mean, I had thought he would actually have a plan in tackling the enemy, considering they were holding his fucking family hostage or something. But instead, he just goes in there fists blazing, against a fully armed enemy corps who has his family at fucking gunpoint? WTF?...

Jesus fucking Christ, the last half hour or more of Firewall, was literally just Harrison Ford beating on Paul Bettany's fucking moronic ass, as if he was dealing with goddam snakes on a presidential plane or some crap like that. There was no strategy involved, no intelligence to be mentioned whatsoever. It was just old skool Harrison Ford, pretending like he was the still the goddam action hero of the goddam 80's...

I'm normally a fan of completely dumbass action films. Hell, I even enjoyed Elektra to some extent, enough to watch the movie three fucking times...

But I'm sorry, Firewall was just so fucking stupid in the end, that even I couldn't enjoy it for what it was...

It's like witnessing an eighty year old man doing it with a fucking twenty year old gold-digger...

Now sure, I would give anything to be in that man's shoes and in that man's fucking woman...

But I sure as hell don't want to be on the outside looking in, watching that fucking horn-dog with the corn-dog go at it...

... which is why, quite frankly?... I've firewalled all traces of this film from fucking memory..."