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Author Topic: Firewall (2006) Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 02-10-2006 06:49 AM                     Ok it's official, Richard Loncraine sucks ass as a director. With more suckage coming from writer Joe Forte (yes I looked up these names on the IMDB), combined they took what could've been a really good film with one of the best actors around and created another installment of wonderful bland and tremendously lame Hollywood fluff we see every week. I feel sorry for Harrison Ford. He is such a good actor and yet I could see the pain in his eyes whenever he had to deliver some of that godawful dialogue. The dialogue in parts were so bad that I couldn't help but imagine the director yelling "cut" and then Mr. Ford turning to him and begging to be given even the smallest amount of artistic license to alter the words just enough to make them believable. Did I mention that the director and writer on this movie sucked ass? I was not overly impressed with the sound mix on this film either. There were parts where the dialogue seemed buried and overall the tonal quality of the dialogue was a little muddy...yet the rest of the mix was well balanced, go figure. I don't guess I'll say that the sound guys sucked ass because it wasn't that bad, but it should be mentioned that the director and writer certainly were sucking some ass when they created this thing. So should you see it? Well it's not too horrible if you can just pretend that there isn't bad direction on a bad script. I'll give it 3 out of 5 stars. Did I mention the director and writer sucks ass???  |  IP: Logged Kyle Anderson Film Handler Posts: 86 From: Tyler, TX, USA Registered: Dec 2005 posted 02-10-2006 12:34 PM                     I have to disagree... IMHO, this movie was excellent. It was something of a mix with the story foreshadowing of Signs (the kind where you don't understand why it was there until it is shown to you), with NONE OF THE FAKE HACKER CRAP. FINALLY, someone in Hollywood got it (close to) right. As for presentation... noticed some negative dirt on the second reel; other than that, it was pretty par for the course (not noticeable either way).  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 02-11-2006 04:26 PM                        CINEMA: Century 20 at Jordan Creek, West Des Moines, IA AUDITORIUM: 9 PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital/THX PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four) There's a guy sitting six rows behind me on his cell phone and I can hear not only him talking, I can hear the other end of the conversation. WIFE #1's ADVENTURES AT THE SNACK BAR "When I told that guy 'extra butter', he LISTENED!" Wife #1 exclaims as she comes down the aisle with her oily bag of plunder. "That turned out to be a rather entertaining trip," she noted. She then told her story. "There was this girl working there? She MUST be new. Anyway, she was weighing something (the bulk candy) and she kept LOOKING and LOOKING around and LOOKING confused and she finally asked the guy "How do you turn this on?" And he's like "What?" "How do you turn this on so you can read it?" And he looked at the scale and he turned it around so the display wasn't facing the wall. Then she was ringing me up and I was like "When it does that, do I get it for free?" The cash register just kept adding totals up on the display! She looked at it and asked the guy how to make it stop and he looked at it and said "I've never seen that happen before." And it was fine on her side. It was pretty funny in all actuality." I've never taken the time to find out if "in all actuality" is a proper phrase, but Wife #1 uses it a LOT. Probably five to ten times a day. I suspect it makes her feel smarter. Harrison Ford plays a guy married to a woman who is young enough to be his daughter. They have two kids young enough to be his grandchildren. One of them may or may not be his stepchild. She acts like one. They live in a fabulous house that the wife (an architect) designed. They're sappy together. The daughter is embarrassed. Some group of idiots come up with this plot to use his security access to rob a bank. They hold the family hostage and demand Jack assist them. They've carefully profiled every aspect of the heist except for one little detail...the bank is in the middle of a merger and certain operations key to the robbery have headed for Wichita, which should make people at the 13th St Warren shout "Woo Hoo!" They'll probably feel more embarrassed by the end. The end is short, fluffy, and leaves so many loose ends they could write a sequel just to explain them. It would be kind of boring though. I immediately came up with a better ending. SPOILERS - This would have been a better ending It's the same ending except as the family comes up the hill into view, police cars arrive as well as Jack's boss and the dickweed from Wichita. Dickweed says nothing needs to be explained because they'd picked up the video and audio feeds from Jack's surveillance equipment and knew what was going on all along. Dickweed sheepishly apologizes for being said dickweed and so blind to Jack's brilliance. They embrace as the ghost of that other guy (Harry?) appears in the sky and smiles. Everybody breaks into "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Sure that would still be ridiculous, but at least they'd be ADMITTING it was ridiculous.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-11-2006 11:47 PM                        2/11/06, 7:25PM, Regal Cinema World 8 in Eugene, House #6, SR•D. Attendance maybe 40 or so (and skewed middle-aged). Feature presentation OK, no complaints. The dialog is mixed at a low level sometimes (but not always) and Harrison Ford almost seems to whisper his lines sometimes (but not always), so ya gots to pay attention. I didn't much like the music score - it seemed instrusive sometimes (but not always). This is a decent thriller that could have been helped by some better dialog (didn't someone else say that? ). Harrison Ford earned every penny of whatever he was paid for this. The computer stuff mostly seems semi-plausible for a change, a Hollywood rarity. The ending is a little hokey, but I guess they felt the audience needed to breathe a sigh of relief after the ride. 3.375 out of 5 stars from me, mostly for Harrison Ford's performance. Say - What brand of computers did that bank use anyway? It's on the tip of my tongue.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 02-12-2006 03:19 AM                     They used Dell and Windows XP. Usually it's Macs since Apple provides them for their advertising.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-12-2006 10:37 AM                        I was just being sarcastic about product placement. The Dell and XP logos were so prominent they couldn't possibly be missed.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 02-12-2006 05:49 PM                     But that alone is part of the humor. Windows for high security!  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-12-2006 07:28 PM                        lol, I bet Microsoft made damn sure there were no security breeches depicted in the story that could be blamed on holes in the OS (which I don't think there were).  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 02-12-2006 09:30 PM                     I was highly disappointed in this film. There should be three categories of action film: 1) Action/adventure - Indiana Jones, Superhero movies This genre has completely unbelievable stunts and comic relief. 2) Over the top action - Die Hard, James Bond. One liners and over the top stunts. 3) Action Thriller - This genre is based on semi-realistic plots. They should not have completely ridiculous stunts and comic relief. Firewall is supposed to be in category three yet the bad guy henchmen seemed like they should be in Austin Powers and 80 year old Harrison Ford is climbing down buildings and beating the crap of well-built 30 year old men. This could have been a great movie. First of all, instead of the ridiculous action (they probably needed a stunt double for scenes where Harrison Ford had to jog) why not make it more cerebral. Instead of brute force, why not have Harrison Ford out smart the bad guys. Second *****slight spoiler warning******* let's make it a little realistic. When Jack was found violating the rules they should have broken the kids knee to send a message. This is what would really happen in that situation. Also, the scene where the bad guy killed one of the henchmen, that should have been Jack's wife. In reality, by killing one henchman, that would immediately get the others thinking that it could happen to them. After the kid had the knees broken and the wife was killed, Jack could have been driven to stop the bad guys to rescue his kids. In summary....a very good premise gone horribly wrong with a terrible script, horrible dialog, poor pacing, bad direction and a TERRIBLE score. 2 out of 5 stars PS- If you're going to put Cloe from "24" in the movie playing the same type of personality and working for a boss named Jack, at least name her Cloe so it's not so annoying to keep thinking of her in "24".  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-12-2006 09:55 PM                        quote: Lyle Romer they should have broken the kids knee There was an audible gasp from a few in the audience when the bad guy made that threat. If he'd actually done it, I wonder if the movie would have gotten an "R" rating instead of "PG-13".  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 02-12-2006 10:07 PM                     quote: Lyle Romer First of all, instead of the ridiculous action (they probably needed a stunt double for scenes where Harrison Ford had to jog) why not make it more cerebral. Oh man I can't stop laughing at the wording, but that's so cruel at the same time too. Harrison Ford isn't THAT old and he isn't THAT weak. He could still easily kick Chuck Norris' ass.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 02-12-2006 10:11 PM                  Ok Grand-Poopie-BAH, that's it! I'm telling Bob Maartini on you!  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-19-2006 11:35 PM                        I liked it. Better than the last couple of H. Ford movies. I found the blatant Dell computers kind of distracting -- although it DOES seem that you see the Dell logo everywhere in real life, at least around here. (We have 3 Dells at my day job.) I thought the ending fight scene went on a bit too long and thought the "killers" should have actually killed someone when the rules were broken repeatedly by the family. But those nitpicks aside, I dind't think the dialogue was as bad as everyone says. The dog/GPS idea was clever. 3.5 out of 5 for me.  |  IP: Logged

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