Virginia Madsen in Firewall

Firewall. Firewall. Firewall. Where to start?

At the beginning, I guess.

Firewall is a 2006 thriller film, it’s a tech heist kind of movie that was popular at the time, for a short while at least.

Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) is the Chief of Security at a Bank in Seattle. He’s forced into helping criminal Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) into transferring money from his bank into his offshore accounts.

Jack, of course, want’s no part of this but Bill has taken his wife Beth (Virginia Madsen) and his two kids hostage in their home so he’s forced into going along with his plan, but he constantly looks for ways out of the situation.
And, yeah. It’s a film that we’ve seen in one form or another many, many times over the years. Firewall brings nothing to the table and ends up being just another formulaic film which hits all the right notes at the right points until it finishes in exactly the way you think it’s going to end.

Virginia’s part in the movie is disappointing. It was her first outing on the big screen since 2004s smash film Sideways, and I won’t lie – I was pretty chuffed to hear she was going to be in a big movie starring alongside Harrison Ford, THE Harrison Ford.

But, how quickly that waned.

It’s another movie where she doesn’t have a great deal to do, anybody could have been his wife. I mean, she does her best to play the scared Wife and Mother in the whole situation, that much is evident. But, it’s another one where she’s wasted. Putting her in a role like this, of course you’re going to get quality but, come on, she deserves more.

She can’t, of course, save a bad movie, especially being underused like she is here. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a terrible movie, I sat through the rewatch so that’s a good thing. But, it’s far from a great one. It’s a no brainer film, popcorn fodder at most.
Speaking about the movie while on the promotional tour with radiofree.com she seemed to have fun making the movie at least, at least working with Harrison Ford, well… And kissing the (lucky) fella at least.

“Yeah. I kind of snuck that in there. He didn’t know I was going to do it. [laughs] And plus it was my first day, and that was the scene, so I just thought, “Well, I’ll go for it.” And I did!

I didn’t plan it, but I just thought, “Well, we don’t have any opportunity to embrace in this movie.” And I wanted to see a marriage. I didn’t want to just be the screen wife in the background. And he didn’t want me to be that way, either. He really fought for every human moment that I had in this movie so that I wasn’t reduced to that. And my hat’s off to him, because he gave that to me. This was my first time in many, many years being in a studio picture. And it was my first time being on a movie this big. So I didn’t want to make waves, I guess. I didn’t feel intimidated, I just wanted to observe, and I don’t know that I would have been as demonstrative as I usually can be on a set with moments that I want as an actor. I think I would have just been like, “That’s cool…” But he stepped up for me.”

I’d like to say it’s worth a watch, but it’s not something you should go out of your way to see. I probably wouldn’t have bothered watching it again if it wasn’t for this project. I wasn’t even sure if I’d make it to the end when it started playing in the machine.

If you’re bored and flicking through the channels and it’s on, then keep it on, watch it for what it is without expecting too much and you’ll be fine.

Availability:

Good. Easy to find on DVD and Blu-Ray, and for cheap. It’s on streaming channels depending on your location.

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