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Top Movies Eight Below Date Movie The Pink Panther Curious George Final Destination 3 Firewall Freedomland When a Stranger Calls Big Momma's House 2 Nanny McPhee New Releases Curious George Final Destination 3 Firewall The Pink Panther Date Movie Eight Below Freedomland Something New Failure to Launch When a Stranger Calls Top Celebs Reese Witherspoon Brad Pitt Paris Hilton Mariah Carey Lindsay Lohan Scarlett Johansson Phil Collins Britney Spears Angelina Jolie Jodie Marsh	Swordfish  Release Date - June 8, 2001 Nationwide  Distributor - Warner Brothers  Duration - 99 Mins  Type - Action/Adventure, Thriller and Drama. ( Rated R )  Writer : Skip Woods.  Producer : Joel Silver, Jonathan D. Krane, Jonathan Krane and Steve Richards.  Director : Dominic Sena.  Starring : John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, Vinnie Jones  Synopsis The world's most dangerous spy is hired by a government agency to coerce a computer hacker recently released from prison to help steal $6 billion in unused government funds. In return, the hacker can regain custody of his daughter and start a new life.  Critic Reviews The Warner Bros. release has a good shot at snagging sizable early-summer booty as audiences schooled in "The Matrix" will recognize a kindred project with plenty of bang-bang action and fireball-erupting highlights. The screenplay credited to Skip Woods ("Thursday") is not bug-free and fudges things along with indecipherable computer programmer/hacker lingo, but it offers R-rated flourishes and successfully revs up one's nervous system. There are decidedly boring parts, but this being a Silver special, "Swordfish" opens and closes with deafening detonations. Before a screaming hostage and city block are brilliantly (no other word seems appropriate) blown to smithereens during the lead-in, the film opens with Travolta -- as a villain who is so rich and secret that he exists outside the normal world -- delivering a testy monologue about movies that cop out. "Hollywood loves a happy ending," Gabriel Shear (Travolta) says with disdain, but this seems to serve as a message that the filmmakers intend to play hardball, a contention with which few will argue afterward. But like "Face/Off," the "Mission: Impossible" films and "True Lies" -- to name a few of many -- "Swordfish" dives into its premise and forgoes developing the characters beyond predictable conflicts and microscopic back stories.From trying-to-reform superhacker Stanley (Hugh Jackman) and anti-cybercrime fed Roberts (Don Cheadle) to Ginger (Halle Berry), one of Gabriel's most prized ladies in his pinup-perfect harem, and covert patriot Sen. Reisman (Sam Shepard), the main players are an uncomplex bunch. The plot is one in which to unavoidably get lost, however, with the title referring to a long-defunct secret government project that left a languishing bank account now worth billions. Gabriel evokes a J. Edgar Hoover-created covert operations agency that responds to threats against Americans, and from there it gets dicey trying to figure out the precise motivations for certain characters, not to mention the movie's politics. In cahoots with Reisman, Gabriel engages in an operation to snatch those billions in an elaborate holdup at a bank involving hostages. The money, safely hacked over by Stanley, is to be used to fund Gabriel's crusade to intimidate and/or terminate terrorists with designs on America.His first meeting with Gabriel includes a macho challenge that includes a friendly blonde giving Stanley oral sex while a gun is held to his head and he has 60 seconds to perform, ahem, magic. Indeed, Stanley "can just see the code" in his head, and there's one hokey sequence of him creating a worm at the keyboards of a multiscreen hot rod, like some hunky, mad organist composing a fugue. Not exactly appreciating the tactics of Gabriel, who brings on the second-act assassins when he crosses Reisman, Stanley has a young daughter, Holly (the promising Camryn Grimes). He wants to be a full-time daddy but can't because she's legally bound to her sleazy mother. When the FBI agent tracks down Stanley and tries to recruit him over to the good guys, both Ginger and Roberts promise to reunite him with Holly.To get to the action highlights, Gabriel and Stanley are chased in the former's very slick TVR Tuscan by a flock of big, black SUVs, and it becomes a fierce high-speed firefight. The eye-opening finale features the leads and a busload of hostages being picked up off the street by a big helicopter while moving and surrounded by police cars. The resultant flight through downtown Los Angeles, done mostly without the help of CGI, is much more fun to watch than it probably was to film. Rounding out the major players is retired English soccer player Vinnie Jones ("Gone in 60 Seconds") as Gabriel's grim right-hand man. From several revealing views of her body to seemingly shifting identities as the plot thickens, Berry plays her duplicitous cyber-tease with all of the electricity missing in her much briefer "X-Men" role. Gabriel at one point explains to Reisman that he has changed his name so many times that he has lost count, but Travolta in a dead-on performance returns to the stylishly malevolent scoundrels on which he built his comeback. Well-matched with Travolta, Jackman -- for whom "X-Men" was a career accelerator -- does a fine job again.   For rating reasons : filmrating.com, mpaa.com                                    For Parents : Parentalguide.com
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