DEJA VU
Firewall produces cool-cat villain and
same ol' material from Harrison Ford
BY LAUREN ALLEN

If you've got a few hours to kill and don't really care how you spend the time, you'll probably enjoy watching Harrison Ford's latest action flick, Firewall. I'd hate to think that Mr. Ford is short on cash these days, but why else would he continue making the same movie again and again?

Ford plays Jack Stanfield, a Seattle bank vice president in charge of security during the day and All-American family man at night. (Isn't he named Jack in at least two of his other movies too?) Jack's family is made up of spunky wife Beth (played by Virginia Madsen), a rebellious and misunderstood 14-year-old daughter Sarah (Carly Schroeder), a cute little 8-year-old boy named Andy (Jimmy Bennet) and, of course, the typical scruffy mutt named, (what else?), Rusty. 

While at work one day, Stanfield's wife and kids are taken hostage inside their own home by a group of high-tech thieves led by a man named Bill Cox, played by Paul Bettany. Cox, posing as a business man, encounters Stanfield at work and tells him that unless he transfers $10,000 from each of the bank's richest 10,000 customers into his off-shore account, his family will be toast. 

After a series of failed escape attempts and a close call with a poor little Andy's life, Stanfield finally gives in and gets the money transferred to Cox only to discover that the hostage takers have now become kidnappers and have run off with his family. While trying to find his wife, kids and Rusty, Jack learns that the bad guys have been setting him up for months. If everything goes according to plan, it's going to look like he stole the money to cover a hidden gambling problem. The disappearance of his family will be attributed to the fact that his wife has fallen in love and run off with his best friend (who's also been murdered by this point).

Now Jack Stanfield is pissed and plans to take charge. He manages to make phone contact with Cox and informs him that he's begun reversing the transfers he made into the off-shore accounts and will continue to do so until his family is returned safe and sound. After Jack hangs up with Cox, it dawns on him that he heard cute little Rusty barking in the background and realizes that he's found the way to getting his wife and kids back. After all, what average American family doesn't equip their pooch with a GPS system in the collar? Not the Stanfields! The high point of the movie comes when Jack's friend turns to him and asks what's next. Jack cries, "I'm going to find my dog!" 

The rest of the story pretty much plays out like you'd imagine. After tracking down his family through Rusty's GPS collar, Jack Stanfield beats the crap out of everyone and saves the day. The Stanfield family literally walks off into the sunset arm-in-arm and all is well with the world again.

The only thing that makes this movie interesting is the performance turned in by Paul Bettany. This guy makes the coolest villain I've seen in a long time. The biggest disappointment was finding out just how bad of an actress Virginia Madsen can be. It's hard to believe that this gal was such a gem in Sideways. Even Rusty was more convincing than her. LW