Common Sense Note
Parents should know the film considers fears of surveillance, with characters showing both anxiety and ingenuity trying to avoid it. It includes multiple tense scenes, as well as violent scenes, both abrupt (as when the villains burst into the family's home and again when the chief villain whomps Jack across the face) and sustained (a prolonged, bruising, bloody fight scene at the end). References are made to online gambling and identity theft. The family's escape attempt appears in fast cuts and jarring images; a child who is allergic to nuts suffers an alarming, nearly fatal reaction. Villains brandish guns, and three men are shot on screen, upsetting other characters who observe. Characters use mild language and a villain's dumping of the family dog leads to the mom's and kids' tears.
Families can discuss the insecurity of online exchanges, of information, money, and identities. What does Jack's change from compliant victim to agitated hero suggest about the consequences of pushing "nice guys" to the edge? How must Jack give up some of his authority (at least until the film's climax), to prevail over his more predictable enemies?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Though FIREWALL takes up the topical focus of fears of surveillance, it offers precious few new ideas. Once again, Harrison Ford must save his family from violent outlaws, grimacing and flailing as he discovers that "going along" only inspires the bad guys to do more damage. Lesson to be learned: You gotta fight back!
As the film opens, computer genius and security expert Jack (Ford) works for a Seattle bank, lives with his family in a gorgeous (and seemingly secure) house designed by his architect wife Beth (Virginia Madsen), and worries just a little bit about new guy Gary's (Robert Patrick) efforts to update the bank's way of doing business. Deriding Jack's old-fashioned "philosophy of risk" (where the bank assumes costs of fraud and hacking), Gary wants to pass on costs to customers.
It's not long before Jack's own info is hacked by a crew of crooks, led by Bill Cox (Paul Bettany), who use it to break into his home, take his wife and kids hostage, and force him to transfer millions to their Cayman Islands account. To ensure his cooperation, Bill has installed all manner of surveillance devices in Jack's home, car, and office -- all yielding those distressingly grainy fisheye-lens images designed to generate viewer tension.
Though Jack tries initially to outsmart Bill (who abuses the family, the dog, and his own men, to underline his complete meanness), when the bad guy gives Jack's young, nuts-allergic son a potentially lethal cookie, then withholds his medicine to make him suffer, the concerned father decides to do what he's told, moving the funds and hoping for the best.
There is no "best" in such a movie situation, however, and so Jack must retaliate, committing his own deceptions and acts of deadly violence. Though he doesn't get much help from boss (Alan Arkin) or his law enforcement veteran buddy Harry (Robert Forster), Jack does get support from his assistant Janet (Mary Lynn Rajskub, who plays a variant of Chloe, her much beloved character on 24, splendidly). Their relationship -- slightly offbeat, based in Ford's signature vulnerability, as well as a trust born of necessity -- brings welcome freshness to an otherwise predictable plot.
Families who like this film should see the similarly plotted and more convincing The Desperate Hours (1955). Or you can watch other Harrison Ford movies in which he must save his family from desperate villains: Clear and Present Danger, The Devil's Own or Air Force One (the last two rated R).
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentVillains threaten family, including wife and 14-year-old girl, forcing wife to pretend to have an affair with her husband's friend. |
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ViolenceGuns wielded, sudden shootings, bloody fisticuffs, smashed cars, bodies thrown through windows; a child suffers a severe allgeric reaction. |
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LanguageMild language, including "screw you," the s-word, "hell." |
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Social BehaviorVillains are greedy and aggressive; hero must use deadly violence to save his family. |
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CommercialismEquifax (online service), Flintstones on television. |
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