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Swordfish Customer Reviews (43 - 45 of 57 Reviews)

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Dominic Sena' Swordfish will go down in history as the movie where Halle Berry was topless for the first time onscreen. Sadly, that's the only thing people will ever remember about this awful movie.
Swordfish is supposed to be about this ex-con computer hacker (Hugh Jackman) recruited by Gabriel and Ginger (John Travolta and Halle Berry) to hack into a government computer system and steal billions of dollars in seized drug money. At least that's what the plot is roughly supposed to be. Somewhere after Halle Berry's gratuitous and unnecessary topless scene the plot becomes totally incoherent in its attempts to create twists and turns to shock the viewer. These logic-bending turns make an already weak story turn into a logic defying brain-mushing pile of drivel. There is no structure to the story and how it's set up; the scenes don't come together to make sense or even make a cohesive story. Stuff just happens because the producers wanted car chases, shootouts and explosions in the film even though there's no reason for them to be there. This film is for the short attention span crowd that likes XXX and The Fast and the Furious; trying to figure out why things happened in this mindless movie will give you an aneurysm.
Long story short, there are shoot-outs with guys in black SUVs, He hacks the system and gives them the money, Gabriel flies out in his helicopter to shoot senator who was helping him Afterward, there's a bank robbery they take hostages, Big explosion from opening scene explained, Gabriel hangs Ginger, He hacks system to get them money in bank, Gabriel shoots Ginger, hostages get on bus, For no reason, helicopter picks up a bus, malfunctions bus lands on building, Hostages fall off building and blow up, more stuff blows up, Gabriel gets in a Helicopter flies away, Jackman blows it up with a rocket launcher even though he has never used one in his life, Gabriel is confirmed dead, BUT HE'S NOT GABRIEL! He's an INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST. Jackman gets his daughter and drives off into the sunset. In the end, Ginger and Gabriel (who somehow survives being blown up in a helicopter) goes to a foreign bank get the stolen money and ride off in their yacht into the sunset while a luxury liner explodes behind them. Did that make sense to you? It didn't to me.
I have to wonder did a chimp with ADHD write this script? And did the same chimp with ADHD have friends with the same disability to greenlight this disaster? I can't believe in this day and age someone with a college education and works for major movie studio would spend over $80 million dollars to deliberately make a movie with a story as ridiculous as this one. Most of the money must have gone for Travolta's salary and those unnecessary CGI effects are added for absolutely no reason at all.
A five second shot at Halle Berry's topless chest isn't worth having to deal with this brain-numbing drivel calling itself a movie. (...) At least you'll get what you pay for. For an exciting crime caper movie get Ocean's Eleven, The Thomas Crown Affair or The Italian Job.

Predictable drivel
Sometimes exciting but for the most part predictable thriller about a world-class computer hacker (Hugh Jackman), who is recruited by a shady government spy (John Travolta) to break into a Los Angeles Bank and steal billions of dollars in unused government funds by cracking computer security codes. Halle Berry is the sexy vixen of a sidekick to Travolta who may or may not be on his side. Great performances all around, even for this genre of filmmaking, but the plot is mostly talk at the beginning, mundane plotting in the middle, a very exciting climax and an easily foreseen ending. Travolta definitely rescues himself from the hell he put himself into with Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers in 2000, but this one isn't near the level of quality that he struck with Get Shorty or Pulp Fiction. Berry has a large role but once again her talent is wasted in favour of gratuitous nudity and overemphasis on her character's potent but ultimately (in this script) useless sexual charisma. Jackman is very appealing both physically and emotionally, but between this performance and the one he gave in Someone Like You you're basically looking at the same character caught in two different circumstances.

Standard plot, Interesting action, Moderate intelligence
John Travolta plays a villain that doesn't bite. Goody. And behind the bullets and exploding things, there is some intelligence (Although not a lot, but some is better than none). Also good. Hugh Jackman, though playing a very standard ex-con hero character ("I'm just an ex-con trying to live a new life and get my kid back"), does a great job and almost - almost - makes his role seem new and different somehow. But don't be fooled. Every prisoner is like that.

The plot, without going into TOO much detail, is that a really good hacker (Stanley, Hugh Jackman) is hired by this freaky, mysterious guy (Travolta) who's planning to rob a bank of nine and a half billion dollars of DEA money....

The sex-related stuff is pretty stupid and distracting. In other words, unnecessary. Needless to say, the movie follows that whole "sex sells" thing. But forget about the sex. The movie has some other stuff to offer.

The action is reasonably good, especially explosion-wise. I'd have to give this movie a pretty high rating on the explod-o-meter, because it's creative with it's pyrotechnics, and it does it a lot.

The chase scenes are also pretty good, except for the running-down-a-hill part. You have to wonder, when the guy you're chasing falls down a huge hill and can't get back up onto his feet because he's too busy breaking his bones while falling, would YOU jump down that hill, too? Apparently, the LAPD and the FBI answer: Yes, definitely. In fact, they would call for back-up to jump down the hill, too.

There are a number of minor problems with the movie, but it's a pretty good action flick. I just wish I saw it with a different audience that didn't take it so seriously. There were many times when I cracked up laughing and realized that everyone else was silent.

The plot is simple, yet "complex." By "complex," I mean that there are a few plot twists and junk that try to come off as intelligent. A few of them work, and give the movie some credibility, while the others are as unnecessary as the sex.

The acting is very good, considering that it's an action movie, and the music ain't bad either. Best when watched while in a good, non-serious mood.

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