Hey folks, Harry here... I just saw this movie tonight as well, and frankly, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Harrison Ford is one of my all time favorite stars. That said, I haven't really liked him in anything for a really long time. Too long. This isn't a return to form, but it is an enjoyable thriller that he's good in. And that's a huge step in my opinion. It's been forever since I've seen a Harrison Ford movie that I really enjoyed. That said, I think it was because my expectations were sent to the bottom of the ocean floor due to that crazed Seussian Super Bowl footage from the day before. Massawyrm didn't seem to go along for the ride, I did. I think the film is going to be one of those. Some will enjoy it, some won't quite enjoy it. But it's that middle ground for film. Here's Massawyrm...
Hola all. Massawyrm here. You know, there’s an old critic joke that goes “Of all the films I’ve seen in my life, this one was the most recent.” And that’s exactly how I feel about Firewall. These are the reviews I dread. You know, the question every critic gets a million or so times is “Which are the hardest movies to review? The good or the bad?” And the truth is neither. The reviews for really good movies and really bad movies write themselves. You just sit at the keyboard for two hours drinking a pot of coffee and your fingers do the rest. No, the hardest reviews you ever have to write are the reviews for movies like Firewall. Movies that are really neither good nor bad – movies that never bored you, or never made you check your watch, but also never excited you. Movies that are like the police procedural you end up watching while your wife is still getting ready to go out. That’s Firewall.
Firewall is your typical, by the numbers Hollywood thriller with nothing special, nothing new and nothing really worth mentioning. But that’s not to say it’s bad. Really, it’s not. It’s just plain, vanilla, pedestrian filmmaking. It never does anything wrong - there are no bad moments, no terrible dialog to speak of, no flights of fantasy that attempt to ignore the laws of physics. And there are a few, well delivered, interesting moments. But despite being a thriller, it falls short of actually being very thrilling. It’s formulaic and paint by numbers most of the way through – but never so much that it telegraphs what’s going to happen next.
If Firewall has anything really going for it, it is that the casting is just perfect. I mean, Harrison Ford is a fucking legend. Sure, his current streak of films is far from stellar (in fact, he hasn’t done anything really entertaining since 1997) but he’s Harrison Ford, and has a history of great films so long that we as an audience are willing to afford him a bum decade or two. Opposite him as the heavy is Paul Bettany, one of those actors with so much on screen charm that he not only helps make Firewall watchable, but also made its director Richard Loncraine’s previous film Wimbledon watchable despite its mediocrity as well. Both of these guys are total pros, and I honestly believe that if it weren’t for these two, this film would have been much harder to sit through. But what really made it worth the drive was seeing the back up cast – the small but pivotal roles in which we are accustomed to seeing those hard working actors whose names are only known by directors and other working actors, instead cast with cult faves. Robert Patrick, Alan Arkin and one of my all time deep fried favorites Robert Freaking Forster are all cast in vastly underused roles that really wouldn’t have worked more in the story, but add a great touch of class to the film.
But unfortunately, that’s really the best that can be said about the film. It’s a film where stuff happens, leading to other stuff happening and finishing off with stuff happening while things explode and people get shot. I’m sorry to spoil the whole plot of the film for you, but that’s pretty much it. It’s what I like to call a ‘Mom and pop thriller’, because when my mother calls this week and asks me what she and my father should see this weekend, I will invariably point them to this. And they’ll like it. It’s a film aimed entirely at middle America who will, in fact, enjoy it - even if six months from now, while walking the video wall at their local Blockbuster, they'll have an argument over whether they actually saw it or not. But it is not at all for anyone with even remotely discriminating taste. Nothing special, nothing new and nothing really worth mentioning.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. I know I will.
Massawyrm
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