Firewall

IMDB

Netflix

Recently, I got me one of them fancy HD-DVD drives for my Xbox 360. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Netflix is already renting HD-DVDs, and that they have set things up so that when you tell them that you have a HD-DVD drive, they automatically change the DVDs in your queue to HD-DVD (if at all available). And from that point on, you just pick films, and it automatically gets the highest resolution format that you own for that film.

When I made this discovery, I upped my netflix subscription and looked for some high definition films to watch. One of them was Firewall, which I remember coming to the theatres but skipped. Ironically, the reason that I wanted to see the film and the reason that I skipped it in the theatre is the same reason – Harrison Ford.

It is not that I think that he is a bad actor by any means. His resume is something to behold (the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies alone make him one of the greatest stars of all time). The problem is that he seems to pick lemons to star in for no apparent reason. And by lemon I don’t mean flops, I mean the kind of stuff that you don’t feel like driving all the way to the theatre to watch. For example:

• Air Force One – I watched this with a friend of mine, and he still talks about how bad he thought it was. I thought that there was potential, but there were too many cliches in this for it to be truly good.
• Six Days Seven Nights – A bit of a snoozefest for me. I don’t remember much about it, which implies that it was not that engrossing or that I gave up watching it.
• Hollywood Homocide – Anybody who watched this knows what I mean. It feels like somebody made a pitch, somehow got the stars and the money, and then wrote out a script in a hurry to match. And I won’t blame this on Josh Hartnett, because Lucky Number Slevin was a great flick.

I don’t think that Harrison Ford is particularly to blame for the above. He always makes as good lemonade as he can given a subpar script. But after he appears in a certain number of these kinds of films, it hurts his reputation for me. Maybe the problem is that he changed agents around the time of The Devil’s Own or so, and now is appearing in stuff that is not big enough for him. He has a lot of presence on the screen, and blockbusters like Star Wars and Indiana Jones suit that.

Another factor in this film’s favor is Paul Bettany. I first noticed him in A Knight’s Tale, and he was very engaging in that. His next film was A Beautiful Mind, which was an awesome thing to behold, and his character in that film was quite unforgettable. With Wimbledon and The Da Vinci Code he is starting to really come into his own as a big star, and it is very much deserved. Some other cast of mention:

• Robert Patrick of Terminator fame, playing Jack’s new boss.
• Mary Lynn Rajskub of 24 fame, playing Jack’s assistant.
• Robert Forster of Jackie Brown fame, playing Jack’s friend.

The premise of the story is simple enough. Jack Stanfield (Ford), a security guy at a Seattle bank, is blackmailed by Bill Cox (Bettany) into helping to steal money from his bank. If he does not cooperate, his family will be killed by Cox. The film is basically about the struggle between the two as Jack tries to escape from Bill’s clutches without having his family harmed, and without actually robbing the money.

The production of the film is very good, and captures the Seattle atmosphere well (I live in the area, so I can state this with some level of authority). The rainy days and dark nights are there, and Jack’s house looks like the kind of thing a rich bloke in the area would own. There is not much more to comment on in terms of the production values. There is no period or fantastical element to simulate, as this is mostly a character drama. The bank is captured fairly realistically, and although I am not a unix guy or router dude, the technobabble was passable to me. They didn’t even use Movie OS when they showed computers, which impressed me to no end and lended a bit of authenticity to things.

Rather than the production values, which normally have a huge impact on my enjoyment of a film, Firewall depends on the story and the suspense involved with figuring out how the protagonist will get out of the trap that the antagonist has laid for him. It manages to pull this off quite well - there are some unexpected twists and turns to the plot that make it less predictable. The acting is very well done. Bettany plays the cold calculating thief very convincingly, and Ford plays the angry protective father/husband very well too. He has always been his best playing a man under fire in his life, which is probably why they cast him for this.

Overall, a pleasant surprise of a film. Definitely recommended for suspense lovers.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

IMDB

Me going to see this film was pretty much a given. Sacha Baron Cohen has been pumping out great comedy for many years – I first saw his work in 2001 when I was visiting some friends in the old country, and they showed me some cool videos of this Ali G guy. The interview with the Beckhams was priceless. It was a surprise to me that HBO picked him up to do a series in the US – normally British comedy does not survive the trip over the Atlantic intact – but the HBO series was very well done.

The plot is seemingly simple – Borat is hired to go to the USA, and make learnings while doing interviews that will help Kazakhstan become a better country. First he does a tour of his village and home (something that you will be familiar with if you have watched a lot of Borat’s work. Unsurprisingly, it does not follow canon – his wife is different and he has only one. Yes I am a nerd for pointing that out). This is a chance to show how backward everybody in his village is. Then he travels to New York (complete with Cyrillic map) to start his journey. What follows is pretty much like the Borat segments from his show, strung together with a storyline that takes him from place to place. Along the way he decides that Pamela Anderson must be his, and he redefines the journey in an attempt to track her down and marry her.

What follows is a film with barely a dull moment, and it is very funny almost all of the time. I think that some more serious reviews might want to focus on the fact that a lot of the plot seems to be very much like a series of disconnected interviews with some funny filler added in like script spackle. I don’t know how true that this actually is (although I suspect that at least one of the interviews could have been taped for the HBO show, put on the shelf unused, and then pulled out for the film), but I don’t really think that it matters because it came out great. This is not a class project for school, this is meant to entertain me, and it does so very bloody well.

The main supporting character for the film is Borat’s producer, Azamat Bagatov, played extremely well by Ken Davitian. He fits the stereotype that we are expecting extremely well. I do think that the fight between Borat and Azamat in the hotel, sans clothing, went for a fraction longer than it should. It was a great modern twist on the Benny Hill style, but it could do with a smidgen of editing.

The funniest thing about all of Cohen’s characters is actually the reaction of the people that he is talking to. He has an ability to make people really show themselves on the camera in a very deep way, sometimes revealing things to large audiences that the people would regret. There are definitely some moments like this in the film, where he will say very bigoted things and have people agree with him. There is a very serious and non comedic undercurrent to Borat, and this is what it is – showing how even in the United States, primitive attitudes like his are actually alive and well. I don’t think that this is specifically a comment on the US – he made the same observations in his native England, and he could go to any industrialized country and pull the same stunt with success. I think that some people see his anti-semitic comments made as the Borat character as a sign that the film is anti-semitic. This tragic – it is obvious to me that Cohen is using his character to show that anti-jewish sentiment is still out there and very strong amongst some people. Like any problem, racism needs to be acknowledged to be solved and I think that Cohen is trying to do some small part here.

Overall, I highly recommend the film. I cannot with good conscience recommend it for children, though. I saw some kids at the cinema where I saw the film that could not have been older than 12, and the movie earned its ‘R’ rating quite comfortably. I even saw some people leave partway through with their children, seemingly unaware of how crass the film would be (luckily they left before the extended naked wrestling scene between Borat and Azamat). I am not trying to tell anybody how to parent their kids – I just want to help people make informed decisions.