Swordfish
Certificate: John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, Vinnie Jones
Length: 105 minutes Director: Dominic Sena
Rating: Travolta plays Gabriel Shear, a spy who plans to steal $9.5 billion dollars to fund his, and the CIA’s, crusade against international terrorism. To do so he needs a computer hacker but unfortunately his first choice man is picked up by the authorities so he turns to Stanley Jobson (Jackman). Jobson, who has just been released from prison, only agrees to help after getting assurances from Shear that he will get his daughter back from his estranged wife. Halle Berry features as Ginger, Shear’s right hand, and Don Cheadle is the relentless Agent Roberts. The heist, when it comes, is of course more complicated than any of them expected.

Travolta is undoubtedly in fine form in what has been touted as another of his comeback films but his performance isn’t really much more than a polished reprise of his turn as Vic Deakins in John Woo’s Broken Arrow; stealing stuff and smoking in an insufferably cool manner. Much like the film itself, Jackman tries very hard and his performance really only comes unstuck because of an often-weak script. The same can be said for Halle Berry though she does add a touch of glamour to proceedings. Dominic Sena seems content to direct the film like one of the extended car chases from his previous outing, Gone in 60 Seconds.

Punctuated by a throbbing soundtrack and dizzying, sometimes inventive, camera work, the film seems to lack coherence. Producer Joel Silver can probably be held partly responsible for this, having in the past described his films as action sequences interspersed with witty dialogue. From the beginning he claimed Swordfish’s special effects would surpass The Matrix, referring to one sequence in particular that I won’t spoil for you. Suffice to say that, as far as the special effects go, he was right.