"Swordfish: Throw it Back!"
by Scott Mantz

"Swordfish"
John Travolta, Hugh Jackman,
Halle Berry
Directed by Dominic Sena

Password denied! Halle Berry, John Travolta, and Hugh Jackman in "Swordfish"

It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a Joel Silver film and a Jerry Bruckheimer film. Both producers have been in the business for decades, and both have a knack for formulaic action movies that aim high on fashion and special effects while aiming low on believable character development. Not that there's anything wrong with that. After all, how can you argue with anyone who's managed to defy critical slammings and accumulate billions of dollars in worldwide box office revenues?

Perhaps it's not surprising then that director Dominic Sena jumped from working with Bruckheimer on last year's uninspired potboiler "Gone in 60 Seconds" to working with Silver on this year's uninspired potboiler "Swordfish." As expected, the film is filled to the rim with edge-of-your-seat thrills and lots of explosions, but it's too cliched, hollow, and predictable to qualify as anything more than a catch of the day that you want to throw back when you're finished.

After serving time for hacking the FBI's computer surveillance systems, Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is trying to turn his life around. He's scraping the bottom of the barrel in his run-down trailer while trying to gain custody of his estranged daughter, but that all changes when he is made an offer he can't refuse. Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) is a former spy who's out to steal billions of dollars in government funding to finance his own paramilitary operations, but Jobson is the only man who can help him infiltrate their computers. Will Jobson give in to the temptation of millions of dollars from Shear and his beautiful partner (Halle Berry), or will he go legit and make a better life for himself and his daughter?

"Swordfish" is nothing more than a by-the-numbers action thriller, and nowhere better can that be seen than in John Travolta's rather--dare I say it--Travolting performance. He isn't in the movie nearly as long as his co-stars, and his turn is merely a hollow re-hash of his confident bad-guy persona from "Get Shorty," "Face/Off," and "Broken Arrow." The movie is more about style than it is about substance, and while there's certainly nothing wrong with that given who the filmmakers are, Travolta just seems to be going through the motions in an effort to redeem himself for last year's abysmal double-header "Battlefield: Earth" and "Lucky Numbers."

After stealing the show in last year's "X-Men," it's becoming quite clear that Hugh Jackman just wants to be a "star" as opposed to being an "actor." His performance is passable as he tries to balance his conscience with his need for cash, and he certainly has a fair amount of on-screen charisma, but it's a forgettable role from a relative newcomer who has yet to deliver on his promise.

The same can be said about Halle Berry, who coincidentally co-starred with Jackman in "X-Men." After gaining critical kudos for bearing her soul in HBO's "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge," it's such a waste to see Berry bear her body for no real reason. Sure, she's sexy as hell, but it's quite obvious that the material is beneath her.

To give credit where credit is due, "Swordfish" does feature some impressive "Matrix"-style special effects, and it has some interesting--albeit very predictable--plot twists. In the end, the film isn't nearly as smart as it wants to be, and even in terms of the most basic form of mind-numbing summer entertainment, it's highly unlikely that "Swordfish" will whet your appetite as a cinematic blue-plate special.

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