Film

Swordfish (2001)

Director: Dominic Sena

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Carnage is fixed in mid-air as the camera exacts an oh so elegant 180 degree arc around exploded bodies in suspended animation, and we’re still only three minutes into the movie! More of a stylist than a director, Dominic Sena (Kalifornia, Gone in 60 Seconds) photographs everything like a fashion shoot. Sporting a natty goatee and slicked-back hair, Travolta looks every inch the criminal mastermind. Jackman is an improbably muscular computer nerd, roped in reluctantly to hack for billions – and as for Berry, there ought to be a law (in some cultures there surely is). You don’t care about these characters, but their clothes are out of sight. Especially Halle’s. Forget Intimacy, if it’s porn you’re after, how about the scene where Travolta holds a gun to Jackman’s head, giving him 60 seconds to break a top secret government code, while a hooker sucks him off at the same time? Cyber porn. Money porn. Gore porn. Even the film’s reactionary politics are obscene (not just a criminal, Travolta is also a true patriot, a terrorist vigilante). Slick, amoral and not half as clever as it thinks it is, it’s the perfect lads’ movie. I confess: I enjoyed it – so shoot me.

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