Swordfish

There are some scripts that read well. They have elements in them that appeal to actors and directors. They get handed around and talked about and attract talent like flies. Then the movie gets made and we all buy our tickets, watch the flick and say, "Huh?" It's not that the movies are bad, it's just that they never quite click the way they should. Or the way that you thought they would. Swordfish is one of these.

Skip Woods' script tries to combine a standard espionage thriller with computer hacking and although it occasionally comes close, ultimately the cigar passes it by. Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is a convicted hacker whose terms of parole require that he never touch a computer. But his legendary skills attract the attention of mastermind Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) who wants Stanley to access seven networks simultaneously in order to steal billions of government dollars stored in a bank. Gabriel sends the beautiful Ginger (Halle Berry) to convince Stanley by playing on his attachment for his daughter who lives with her drunk, drugged out mother and her porno film-producing husband (these people are so outrageously worthless that it's funny). Desperate to see his daughter again, Stanley reluctantly comes on board.

As played by Hugh Jackman, Stanley is the archetypal Hitchcock hero — an ordinary man who ends up involved in something way over his head. Jackman isn't entirely convincing as a hacker, however. Let's face it, if computer geeks looked like him we'd all be lining up for Perl classes. But, hey, it's a movie and Jackman brings a much-needed intelligence and vulnerbility to the testosterone drenched proceedings.

Speaking of testosterone, John Travolta as Gabriel Shear revisits the menace of his Broken Arrow loony with a character who is potentially much more dangerous. And while his air of quiet threat is effective, he is ultimately betrayed by the simple-minded script in which Gabriel begins to take on the persona of Pepe LePew. Nothing slows him down, he already knows everything and has a plan for it. So where's the suspense?

Of course, characterization is the least important element in a movie like this. It's produced by Joel Silver, for heaven's sake, so it's about explosions and lots of guy stuff. Of course, they try to Tarentino-ize the proceedings by having Travolta deliver a monolog on realism in the movies. The scene is effective (though it's a little distracting to hear erudite film criticism coming out of the mouth of the guy who brought us Battlefield Earth), and sets up the theme for the movie. Well, it doesn't so much set it up as beat us over the head with it. The monolog leads into a great action sequence that takes us into an extended flashback.

The action is all expertly choreographed and shot, but director Dominic Sena runs into trouble when he has to handle scenes that don't have explosions. The straight exposition and dialog stuff looks like TV, more specifically it looks like an episode of 80s series, Miami Vice. And, like so many before him, he stumbles at the challenge of making someone typing on a keyboard cinematically interesting.

Of course, part of the problem could be the script, which is simplistic and juvenile to an almost laughable degree. It comes across like a 15-year old's idea of a gritty thriller: the male characters are all tough and smart-mouthed and the women are there to look pretty and service them. The clever plan isn't really that clever, and some of the complications are barely sketched in. For example, the FBI are there to add another wrinkle to the plot, but Don Cheadle has too little to do and never seems like any kind of threat to Travolta's plan. Sam Sheppard plays a sinister Senator with his usual good ol' boy threat, but he's ultimately dealt with in such an offhand manner that you wonder why the great playwright didn't take the younger writer aside to explain some of the basics of effective drama.

Swordfish has many of the elements of the first Die Hard: a plan that is much more complex than it first seems, a cool calculating villain, and a hero who is out of his depth but realizes that he's the only one who can do anything. Unfortunately, Travolta is no Alan Rickman when it comes to oozing intelligent malice and the clever plot isn't. The only person to come out of this with any merit is Hugh Jackman who seems to be aiming for Mel Gibson's crown as an actor who can handle the action, yet still create believable, flawed and interesting characters.

My recommendation? Video it.