Plot
Hacker Stanley Jobson is recently released from prison for infecting the FBI with a computer virus several years earlier.
He is hired by the mysterious Gabriel Shear to help steal over $9b from the United States government, and in return Gabriel will help reunite Stanley with his teen daughter Holly – and get her away from her alcoholic ‘corn’ star mother.
The only problem, is FBI agent Roberts, who is the one who put Stanley away years ago, and is hot on both their tails.
Direction
Directed by Dominic Sena. This has a very similar look and feel of the previous film I reviewed of his (and his previously directed film, Gone in 60 Seconds).
Cast
John Travolta plays Gabriel, and as much as he always reads the assignment, and as good as he is as a bad guy (with a silly wig and flavour savour to boot)… he still feels… less here…
Hugh Jackman plays Stanley – this was ‘just’ around the time of his breakthrough role of Wolverine and was just 32 when he made this. He’s a great co-lead and shows why he is able to hold his own in front of the camera.
Halle Berry plays Ginger, who is Gabriel’s ‘right hand’ and later revealed to be a DEA agent…
This was also famous for her ‘first nude scene’ which is what sold tickets way back in 2001.
Don Cheadle plays Roberts. He’s always able to deliver a strong performance be it the bad guy or the good guy.
Other cast include William Mapother, Zach Grenier, Sam Shepard, Vinnie Jones, Drea de Matteo.
Jones who had just starred in 60 seconds has a similar type role here (mute until a dialogue at the end of the film.
Breakdown
Starting with ‘the end’ it has a glorious 360° camera pan explosion – that is pretty impressive for a 25 year old film. It also isn’t too afraid to poke fun of itself (and the rest of Hollywood) where Travolta’s film loving Gabriel makes a mockery of today’s Hollywood.
Travolta’s talk of media and how the internet works is more relevant today than it was way back in 2001. Speaking more on the year it was released – and that it was releasee in June of that year – one of the primary themes is “America First” and how it wants to eliminate terrorism. This is extremely thought provoking considering what American really went through just a few months later….
The characters within the film are slightly cliche… there is the good guy who did the bad thing (Stanley) – who wants to get his daughter back from a bad mother (but she’s ultra rich). There’s the uber rich bad guy (Gabriel) who can get what ever he wants, and offers up hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix the ‘good guys’ problems. (Which makes Gabriel’s Hollywood makes shit opening diatribe slightly ironic), and of course the good cop who is investigating everything just so happened to be the one who put Stanley in jail all those years ago.
Stanley’s plight to get daughter back is supposed to try to add heart to the film, but it doesn’t really give the effect it tries to do. The whole concept of “hacking is sexy” might have worked in 2001, but even then some of the scenes were either laughable (Stanley able to hack into a site within 60 seconds while being.. ahem.. attended to), or questionable at best.
The added ‘twists’ (the late Shepard’s senator being in on it), Ginger is a DEA agent… (or… not a DEA agent), the overuse of the ‘f’ word, and some poor cinematography are some real downers.
Overall
Fun, and somewhat meta film at times in its regard to Hollywood, has some serious themes in regards to terrorism and America (and was release just months before the tragedy in NYC in 2001).
Solid performances, but we’ve seen Travolta do better. Some improvement in the direction would have tidied this up somewhat, but still a solid watch… 25(?) years later.
3.5/5
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