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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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Firewall (2006)

Rating: 2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Banking On It

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Firewall on DVD

Harrison Ford returns to the big screen in another of his "adult contemporary thrillers" (Presumed Innocent, The Devil's Own, etc.), though this one displays a fair amount of intelligence before the ludicrous third act sets in. He plays a family man who is a computer security specialist employed at a Seattle bank. The bad guy (Paul Bettany) arranges to hold his family hostage until he transfers $100 million to a private account. Director Richard Loncraine (Richard III, Wimbledon) meshes the film's various elements together surprisingly well, and enthusiastically displays his army of top character actors, Virginia Madsen, Robert Forster, Alan Arkin, Robert Patrick and Mary Lynn Rajskub, to best effect. And Ford, now in his 60s, still has the stuff of great leading men. But the string of dumb explosions and plot coincidences eventually diffuses the goodwill that Firewall's first hour works so hard to build up.

Starring: Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, Robert Forster, Alan Arkin, Robert Patrick and Mary Lynn Rajskub
Written by: Joe Forte
Directed by: Richard Loncraine
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some intense sequences of violence
Running Time: 105 minutes
Date: February 10, 2006