Swordfish (film)

Swordfish
File:Swordfish movie.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Dominic Sena
Produced by	Joel Silver Jonathan D. Krane
Written by	Skip Woods
Starring	John Travolta Hugh Jackman Halle Berry Don Cheadle Vinnie Jones
Music by	Christopher Young Paul Oakenfold
Cinematography	Paul Cameron
Edited by	Stephen E. Rivkin
Production company	Village Roadshow Pictures Silver Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates	June 8, 2001 (2001-06-08) (United States, limited)
Running time	99 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$102 million
Box office	$147 million

Swordfish is a 2001 American action crime thriller film directed by Dominic Sena and starring John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle and Vinnie Jones. The film centers on Stanley Jobson, an ex-con and computer hacker who is targeted for recruitment into a bank robbery conspiracy because of his formidable hacking skills. The film was a slight box office success and was negatively received by critics upon release. It was also notable for Halle Berry's first topless scene.

Plot

In a restaurant in Los Angeles, a man discusses the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon before walking off, with numerous SWAT officers pointing guns at him and a dishevelled man following him out. They walk to a nearby building with gunmen and hostages strapped with bombs and ball-bearings. One of the gunmen is killed by a sniper; when the hostage is forcibly taken away, the explosives detonate via a proximity trigger, killing her and others. The film then flashes back four days.

Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is a hacker who infected the FBI's Carnivore program with a potent computer virus, delaying its deployment by several years. For this, he was arrested by Agent J.T. Roberts (Don Cheadle), convicted of computer crimes and spent two years in Leavenworth.

A condition of his parole is that he is forbidden from touching, much less using, a computer. His ex-wife, Melissa (Drea de Matteo), has sole custody over their daughter Holly and a restraining order against Stanley from seeing Holly, despite her alcoholism, her job as a porn actress, and her marriage to her employer.

While Stanley is at home (a trailer in rural Texas) practicing his golf swing, Ginger Knowles (Halle Berry) shows up to solicit his hacking skills for her boss Gabriel Shear (John Travolta). Stanley is apparently recruited at the last minute as a replacement for Gabriel's first choice, Axl Torvalds (Rudolf Martin), a Finnish hacker of exceptional talent who was arrested by authorities at the airport. Torvalds is later assassinated by Gabriel's men before he can divulge anything about his assignment and who hired him to Agent Roberts. For an initial $100,000, Stanley agrees to meet with Gabriel. He and Ginger fly to Los Angeles and meet Gabriel in a night club. Gabriel pressures Stanley right then and there to hack a government system in 60 seconds while simultaneously being held at gunpoint by Gabriel's bodyguard and right-hand man, Marco (Vinnie Jones) and receiving fellatio from a young woman (Laura Lane). Stanley manages to succeed in hacking the system, passing Gabriel's test.

Roberts realizes that Stanley was recruited to replace Torvalds, and begins surveying him, watching as he picks Holly up from school (Melissa being unconscious in an alcoholic stupor at the time) and drives her home. Confronting him afterwards, Stanley attacks Roberts and attempts to escape, only for one of Roberts's subordinates to hit him with his car. However, Roberts then says that he won't arrest him for visiting Holly, as he is more interested in Gabriel, who has a disturbing amount of resources and no traceable past. When Stanley confronts Ginger, she admits that she's undercover from DEA.

At his house Gabriel offers Stanley $10 million to write a worm, actually a "hydra" or as Ginger calls it: a multi-headed worm" that steals money from a secret government slush fund to the order of $9.5 billion. Gabriel reveals to Stanley that he works for an organization called the Black Cell that was started by J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s, which is responsible for retaliatory attacks against terrorists who have attacked Americans. It is currently headed by Senator Reisman (Sam Shepard), who discovers that the FBI has caught onto Gabriel and attempts to pull the plug. After Gabriel refuses to terminate his plans, Reisman attempts to have Gabriel killed, which fails. Gabriel tracks the Senator down while he is fly fishing in Bend, Oregon and kills him. Afterwards, he kills Melissa and her new boyfriend, then kidnaps Holly.

Stanley & Roberts confront Gabriel, who talks about Dog Day Afternoon. Gabriel proceeds with his plan and raids the local branch of the WorldBanc. In the process, he takes hostages, puts explosives on them and deploys Stanley's hydra. Having realized that Ginger is from DEA, Gabriel threatens to kill Ginger if Stanley doesn't deploy the hydra. Stanley deploys the hydra, but Ginger is killed anyway. After stealing the $9.5 billion he boards the hostages and his crew on a bus out of the WorldBanc. Gabriel demands a plane at the local airport (a hostage negotiation cliché) but it was a diversion. An S-64 Aircrane swoops down, lifts the bus and releases it on the rooftop of a skyscraper. From the rooftop, Gabriel seemingly departs with his team in a helicopter, which Stanley shoots down with a rocket-propelled grenade. At the morgue, Stanley and Agent Roberts learn that the body recovered from the helicopter is that of a former Mossad agent named Gabriel Shear (possibly a mocked up dummy as Stanley saw the double in the "freezer" at Gabriel's house). Stanley recognizes this corpse from "Gabriel's" house. Stanley realizes that DEA has no record of anyone named Ginger. DEA also does not have a picture of Ginger. Ginger's corpse is actually missing. After realizing that Ginger was wearing a bullet-proof jacket, Stanley realizes that Ginger and (imposter Gabriel) were partners in crime all along, making the entire operation a misdirection. Despite this, Stanley doesn't tell Roberts or the rest of the police that (Ginger & imposter Gabriel) are still alive. Roberts releases Stanley from prison, allowing him to have full custody of Holly.

Ginger and Gabriel are next seen in Monte Carlo transferring the $9.5 billion into other accounts. Finally, while Ginger and Gabriel look on, a yacht is destroyed as a news anchor is heard reporting that a suspected terrorist died on the yacht, the third such successful counter-terrorism operation in as many weeks.

Cast

• John Travolta as Gabriel Shear
• Hugh Jackman as Stanley Jobson
• Halle Berry as Ginger Knowles
• Don Cheadle as Agent J.T. Roberts
• Sam Shepard as Senator James Reisman
• Vinnie Jones as Marco
• Drea de Matteo as Melissa
• Rudolf Martin as Axl Torvalds
• Zach Grenier as Assistant Director Bill Joy
• Camryn Grimes as Holly Jobson
• Angelo Pagan as Torres
• Kirk B. R. Woller as Axl's Lawyer
• Carmen Argenziano as Agent
• Tim DeKay as Agent
• Laura Lane as Helga

Reception

The film received a great deal of press initially because it featured Halle Berry's first topless scene. She was paid an extra $500,000 on top of her $2 million fee to appear topless in this film. Critics said the scene looked forced, thrown into the film just to garner press. Berry said she did the topless scene, knowing it was gratuitous, to overcome the fear of appearing nude onscreen.

Only 26% of critics gave the film a positive review according to Rotten Tomatoes. In a review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote:

With its blasé blend of bogus international intrigue and action-for-action's-sake, Swordfish suggests a James Bond movie stripped of humor. True, there are a few moments of wit, like the opening sequence. But the dominant tone masquerading as humor is a snide, rancid nihilism devoid of laughs, unless wholesale destruction and gloating stupidity are what tickle your funny bone.

According to Box Office Mojo, the film grossed over $147 million in worldwide box office receipts on a production budget of $102 million. John Travolta's performance in the film earned him a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actor (also for Domestic Disturbance).

DVD alternate ending

The DVD version contains an alternate ending wherein Ginger is told in the bank that the account is already almost empty, alluding to the possibility that Stanley has played one final trick on them and taken the money himself. When Ginger tells Gabriel about this, he takes it in stride and asks her to join him on a trip to Istanbul. In a companion scene to the alternate ending, Stanley is shown on a trip with his daughter in a brand new RV. While eating at a diner, Stanley is shown transferring billions of dollars to various charities before continuing his trip.

Soundtrack

Main article: Swordfish (soundtrack)

The soundtrack for Swordfish was produced by Paul Oakenfold, under Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. and distributed through London Sire Records, Inc. It contains 15 tracks. The film's orchestral score was written by Christopher Young with several electronic additions by Paul Oakenfold. Fragments from the score were added to the official soundtrack, but were remixed by Oakenfold. A more complete release was issued as an award promo, which is known for its rarity.

See also

• Swordfish (password) – Origin of the film's title
• Linus Torvalds – The name of the 'hacker/cracker', Axl Torvalds, is an homage to the author of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds.
• Bill Joy – The name of the FBI Assistant Director, Bill Joy, appears to be an homage to the American computer scientist and Sun Microsystems co-founder, Bill Joy.
• Incompatible Timesharing System – Another homage; the operating system running on the old PDP-10 where Stanley Jobson hid his worm.

External links

• Official website
• Swordfish at IMDb
• Swordfish at AllMovie
• Swordfish at Rotten Tomatoes
• Swordfish at Box Office Mojo
• Swordfish at Metacritic