Firewall - 4th October 2011

Yet again we wander off into the wonderful world of film. Tonight we move to a crime thriller, starring Harrison Ford from 2006 it's;

Firewall

The story of this movie is that bank security expert; Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) is made to "break into" the bank that he has kept secure for the last 20 years. However, this is not a bank vault cash heist, instead this is a credit transfer, made by hacking into the banks' computer system.

Right let's just stop here to make a point, I do not like films where the computer systems shown are unrealistic, not believable and clearly a figment of somebody's imagination. Firewall is not in this league, the desktop and laptops seen are Dell machines, running Windows XP. The servers seen in the banks server room are Dell machines also, in proper server racks and everything. For this and this alone, Firewall gains some serious kudos, with me at least.

Carying on with the plot.

Early on in the film, Jacks' family are kidnapped by the gang, masterminded by Bill Cox, played brilliantly by the English actor Paul Bettany (Silas in The Da Vinci Code).
From here our hero Jack is forced to comply with their demands and ensure the transfer of monies is made from the bank, to the gangs' offshore account.
This is not going to be as easy as first thought, as a pending merger has moved some of the physical access to the banks computer system, to an offsite location.

Bear with it!!

I know it sounds boring, but honestly it's not. If you like a bit of techie crime drama, then Firewall is worth a watch.
OK, there is one point where Jack cobbles together a fax machine and an iPod to create a screen reader, which he then plumbs into his laptop, to hook it up to some OCR software. This does drive the realms of believability off the page somewhat, but it could happen!

Are you still awake?

It's good stuff, and only a little bit far fetched, but it's a gritty, crime thriller, that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

As thrillers go, this one is a good film to watch. This one gets our seal of approval!