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| Log on. Hack in. Go anywhere. Steal Everything. SWORDFISH UK Release Date: 27/07/01 Certificate: 15 Official Website Director: Dominic Sena Producers: Joel Silver & Jonathan D. Krane Screenplay: Skip Woods |
| Things go from bad to worse for Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman). Sent to prison for being the world's greatest computer hacker, he now lives in a caravan (or 'trailer') in Texas. He is banned from using computers or seeing his beloved daughter Holly, who lives with her crack-whore mother and porn film-producer step-father. Next thing he knows John Travolta is making him hack into the Department Of Defense in sixty seconds while Vinnie Jones holds a gun to his head and a sexy blonde gives him a blowjob. He does, of course, pass the test and is hired to help steal billions of dollars from the Government. After a superb performance as Wolverine in last year's X-Men, Jackman here seems content to take a backseat in the cool stakes to Travolta's Gabriel Shear. Apparently a millionaire playboy that can do anything he wants, he actually turns out to be the secret agent of a shadowy Government agency that commits acts of terrorism |
| against people who commit acts of terrorism against the United States. There is some discussion from Jobson about the moralty of all this, but the audience is clearly meant to side with Shear. Most Americans would probably do this as a matter of course, and I'm prepared to go along with this because Travolta is back to his Pulp Fiction and Face/Off level of cool, orchestrating all the action sequences, and loving every minute of it. |
| The movie moves along at great speed, with great action set pieces, loads of cool performances, and Jackman's fellow X-Man Halle Berry giving her usual sexy temptress best, and getting her baps out. Joel Silver has come up trumps, in yet another "From The Producer Of The Matrix" movie. Unlike Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds, though, this one is as entertaining, if not as seminal, as that work. Without a hit like this, it would have been interesting see how long Silver would have carried on promoting third-rate flicks with that legend. Probably until next year's Matrix Reloaded. Swordfish is a fantastic summer movie; see it on the big screen. 10/10 |
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