Swordfish (Cinema: July 2001)

D-U-M-B! I want you to get used to this word as I'm going to be using it quite a lot in the next few paragraphs. Don't get me wrong though - the latest Joel Silver production does not insult your intelligence - it just assumes that you haven't got any to start with.

Swordfish is a cyber-heist-thriller - but dont worry, in this world of hacking there is minimal use of computers and when they are used there is an army of scantily clad women to parade around during the boring bits. So who have we got? Well there's Gabriel (John Travolta reprising his Broken Arrow coolness, his Face-Off toughness and his Pulp Fiction haircut) the leader of a group of 'bad-people' - we don't actually learn until the end of the film what they actually do - intent on pulling off a robbery no matter what the cost. Stanley (Hugh Jackman) is the 'burnt-out' (yeah I know!) hacker who is dragged from retirement (yeah I still know!) to do one last job in order to save his daughter from the clutches of her porn-star mom (just listen it might get better!). Halle Berry plays Ginger, providing the tits in this tits-and-ass film, and we dont really know what she does either - just sort of acts mysterious and wears very little. It is worth mentioning that the brilliant Don Cheadle is in this film, although he is criminally underused, so you probaly wont see him if you blink.

I won't bore you with any more plot detail - there isn't any. You see this film is the dumbest film ever made for a mass audience. It is so dumb that the makers have even taken the plot for Gone In 60 Seconds and replaced cars with computers, Nic Cage for Hugh Jackman, one cartoon baddy for another, and Vinnie Jones for well.....Vinnie Jones. Imagine if Con-Air had not been so brilliantly self-effacing and you would be watching Swordfish. In this film baddies "live in a world that begins where yours ends.....a world of shadows and of the night" - er, yeah! In the Swordfish world porn-star moms on drugs who live with porn-tsar's get custody of children over a 'principled hacker' who never made money from what he did - I can see the logic in that! Basically this film is brilliant - you do not have to think once - you just sit back and watch the pretty pictures! And they are pretty - the film looks great, it is completely lush with colour, so much so that you expect the screen to start dripping. The visual style is also very fresh and kinetic keeping the pace of the film high at all times. The action is not completely original but at times does impress with its ideas and flair - in fact the opening ten minutes alone are worth the admission price.

Yes this may be a huge hunk of dumb, but it is immensely fun to watch! It will probably leave you wondering how many IQ points you've dropped just from watching it though.

RATING:

(c)Matt C 2001