Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

Reviews

Firewall

2.0 stars

By PETER KEOUGH | February 9, 2006

2.0 Stars

FIREWALL This rehash is about as exciting as it sounds.

You could trace a history of American anxiety through the bad guys Harrison Ford has had to fight to protect his on-screen family: industrialization in The Mosquito Coast(1987), the IRA in Patriot Games(1992), Russian terrorists in Air Force One (1997), himself in What Lies Beneath (2000). In Firewall he’s down to computer hackers, and this rehash is about as exciting as it sounds. Ford’s Jack Stanfield is a security wiz with a fabulous home, two spoiled children, and a trophy wife (Virginia Madsen). Then Paul Bettany’s slick thug takes them hostage and forces Jack to break into his own bank’s system. Ford looks annoyed that someone woke him up to act out this nonsense, though he does perform his own stunts, adding sweaty authenticity. Plus the film boasts Alan Arkin, Robert Forster, and Robert Patrick, who have maybe 10 lines among them. And what of the history of director Robert Loncraine, a decade after the brilliant Richard III?

Topics: Reviews , Celebrity News, Entertainment, Science and Technology, More

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 02/17 ] Festival Ballet Providence presents UP CLOSE ON HOPE @ Black Box Theater

[ 02/17 ] "Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings @ Bert Gallery

[ 02/17 ] Mary Poppins @ Providence Performing Arts Center

More Information

Watch the trailer for Firewall (QuickTime)

ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

REVIEW: CORIOLANUS | February 16, 2012
In a line of fascist-style stagings of the Bard from Orson Welles's 1937 black-shirted Julius Caesar to Richard Loncraine's brown-shirted Richard III (1998), Ralph Fiennes sets his lean and hungry take on Shakespeare's tragedy in a mo dern-day war zone, paring the play to a brisk two hours.

REVIEW: SAFE HOUSE | February 15, 2012
Daniel Espinosa's over-edited but engaging spy thriller delves into edgy territory untouched by any of the numerous movies it imitates: it has Brendan Gleeson do an American accent.

REVIEW: THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY | February 15, 2012
The most touching love story and best children's movie in a long time, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's adaptation of Mary Norton's book The Borrowers employs old-fashioned animation techniques to create a world that is familiar, uncanny, and luminous.

REVIEW: RAMPART | February 15, 2012
The rotten cop flick has become a mini-genre of sorts, a subset of noir, going back at least to Orson Welles's Touch of Evil .

REVIEW: THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012: DOCUMENTARY | February 10, 2012
The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.