Harrison Ford does not need to make movies that often. His incredible string of hits in the '70s, '80s and '90s cemented his status as one of Hollywood's biggest stars ever. As a result of this success, he can make a movie whenever he wants.
Regretfully, Ford seems to only make movies for the millions upon millions of dollars thrown at him. His latest, 'Firewall,' falls into the same mold as recent endeavors like 'Hollywood Homicide' and 'K-19''horrendously made movies that netted Ford's bank account over $20 million a movie.
'Firewall' places Ford as Jack Stansfield, the VP of Security for a large bank currently undergoing a merger. The merger is rough, but all in all, Jack's life is pretty decent. This paves the way for Paul Bettany's Bill Cox to take advantage of Stansfield by holding his family hostage and forcing Jack to rob $100 million from the bank before he will release the family.
This plot is similar to last year's Bruce Willis vehicle 'Hostage,' but unfortunately 'Firewall' cannot amend 'Hostage's' errors and ends up much worse off for the wear. The main reason for this comes from the horrendous script.
First-time screenwriter Joe Forte mangles the script with atrociously unnecessary foreshadowing and cringe-worthy lines. For some reason, every time Forte introduces a plot device that will play a role later on in the film, he feels the need to draw attention to it several times. Probably sitting on the cutting room floor that looked something like this:
Harrison Ford: The important thing is this plot device.
Virginia Madsen: Which plot device?
Harrison Ford: The one that will become important in the third act!
Virginia Madsen: But there are like five of them!
Harrison Ford: (looking moody and pissed off) ALL OF THEM!
While this might seem an oversimplification of the dialogue, it is actually fairly accurate. Forte spent too much time driving home these plot devices as important. Had he just mentioned them in passing, an observant viewer might have felt good for figuring out where the puzzle piece fit. Instead, the point of the plot device is driven home ad nauseam where even the least attentive audience member would catch onto it.
Another problem with Forte's script comes with the characters'they are not very unique, nor is it possible to really care about any of them. It seems Forte actually set up his script to make viewers root for the bad guys, since there is very little reason to like the main characters.
Unfortunately, the bad guys are so incompetent that it is not fun to root for them either. Their plan actually boils down to this'take bank executive's family hostage... make $100 million!
This leads to Mr. Harrison Ford himself. Like his other paycheck movies, he sleepwalks through his role, spouting off the lines while obviously not caring about what he is saying, just as long as he looks good doing it'which he does not. Much of his acting can, at best, be described as comic exasperation... and this is not a comedy.
With Ford's star status, he could avoid garbage scripts like Forte's. He could go out and make another 'Air Force One' or 'Fugitive.' Instead, 'Firewall' only succeeds in adding to Ford's bankroll, while dropping his credibility as an actor even further.
