''Swordfish'' is a 2001 American
action thriller film
Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...
directed by
Dominic Sena
Dominic Sena (born April 26, 1949) is an American film director and music video director. As a film director, he is best known for directing the films ''Kalifornia'' (1993), '' Gone in 60 Seconds'' (2000), and '' Swordfish'' (2001). As a music ...
, written by
Skip Woods
Skip Woods (born December 4, 1969) is an American filmmaker. He has primarily worked in the action genre as the writer of the films ''Swordfish'' (2001), ''Hitman'' (2007), and ''A Good Day to Die Hard'' (2013), in addition to co-writing '' X-M ...
, produced by
Joel Silver
Joel Silver (born July 14, 1952) is an American film producer.
Life and career
Silver was born and raised in South Orange, New Jersey, the son of a writer and a public relations executive. His family is Jewish. He attended Columbia High School i ...
, and starring
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor. He came to public attention during the 1970s, appearing on the television sitcom ''Welcome Back, Kotter'' (1975–1979) and starring in the box office successes ''Carrie'' (19 ...
,
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman (born 12 October 1968) is an Australian actor. Beginning in theatre and television, he landed his breakthrough role as James "Logan" Howlett / Wolverine in the 20th Century Fox ''X-Men'' film series (2000–2017), a role ...
,
Halle Berry
Halle Maria Berry (; born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. She began her career as a model and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant and coming in sixth in the Mis ...
,
Don Cheadle
Donald Frank Cheadle Jr. (; born November 29, 1964) is an American actor. He is the recipient of multiple accolades, including two Grammy Awards, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has also earned ...
,
Vinnie Jones
Vincent Peter Jones (born 5 January 1965) is a British actor, presenter, and former professional footballer.
Jones played professionally as a defensive midfielder from 1984 to 1999, notably for Wimbledon, Leeds United, Sheffield United, Chelse ...
, and
Sam Shepard
Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any write ...
. The film centers on Stanley Jobson, an ex-con and
computer hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...
who is targeted for recruitment into a bank robbery conspiracy because of his formidable hacking skills.
Plot
Stanley Jobson is a
cyber-hacker who became notorious for infecting the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
's
Carnivore
A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...
program with a
computer virus
A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...
. Stanley's parole forbids him from accessing the internet and computers while his ex-wife Melissa, an alcoholic and part-time porn star, has issued a restraining order against him. This also prevents him from seeing his only daughter Holly.
Ginger Knowles persuades Stanley to work for Gabriel Shear, who threatens him into cracking a secure
Defense Department server. After the hack, Gabriel offers Stanley $10 million to program a multi-headed
worm
Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always).
Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...
, a "hydra", to siphon $9.5 billion from government
slush fund
A slush fund is a fund or account that is not properly accounted, such as money used for corrupt or illegal purposes, especially in the political sphere. Such funds may be kept hidden and maintained separately from money that is used for legitim ...
s. Stanley begins work on the worm, learning that Gabriel leads Black Cell, a secret organization created by
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...
to launch retaliatory attacks against
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
s that threaten the United States. He also privately discovers Ginger is a
DEA
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic en ...
agent working undercover and is further surprised to discover a corpse that resembles Gabriel.
After he takes Holly home from school, Stanley discovers that he is being followed by FBI agent J.T. Roberts, who had previously arrested him. Roberts, though monitoring Stanley closely, is more interested in Gabriel as he does not appear on any government database, and after learning that another hacker, Axl Torvalds had been killed by Gabriel's men, warns Stanley to be cautious. Stanley opts to secretly code a backdoor in his hydra that reverses the money transfer after a short period. Meanwhile,
U.S. Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
Jim Reisman, who oversees Black Cell, learns the FBI has started tracking Gabriel and orders him to stand down. Gabriel refuses and narrowly defeats a hit team dispatched against him by Reisman. In retaliation, Gabriel personally kills Reisman in revenge and continues his plan.
Stanley delivers the hydra to Gabriel and leaves to see Holly, only to find that Gabriel has
kidnapped
Kidnapped may refer to:
* subject to the crime of kidnapping
Literature
* ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson
* ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...
her and framed him for Melissa's murder alongside her husband and porn producer. Stanley has no choice but to participate in a bank heist to get Holly back. At the site of the heist, Gabriel and his men storm a branch and secure its employees and customers as hostages, fitting each of them with ball-bearing-based explosives similar to
Claymore mine
The Claymore mine is a directional anti-personnel mine developed for the United States Armed Forces. Its inventor, Norman MacLeod, named the mine after a large medieval Scottish sword. Unlike a conventional land mine, the Claymore is command-de ...
s. When police and FBI surround the branch, Gabriel takes Stanley to a nearby coffee shop across the street to meet with Roberts, but Gabriel spends the time discussing the film ''
Dog Day Afternoon
''Dog Day Afternoon'' is a 1975 American biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick, and Charles Durning. The screenplay is wr ...
'' and the nature of misdirection. Once back in the bank, Gabriel has one of his men escort a hostage to demonstrate the situation where a sharpshooter kills the man. As other agents pull the hostage away from the bank, the bomb detonates and devastates much of the street, a scene shown ''
in medias res
A narrative work beginning ''in medias res'' (, "into the middle of things") opens in the midst of the plot (cf. ''ab ovo'', ''ab initio''). Often, exposition is bypassed and filled in gradually, through dialogue, flashbacks or description of pa ...
''.
Gabriel instructs Stanley to launch the hydra and turns Holly over to him once completed. However, the back door triggers before they can leave the bank, leading to Stanley being recaptured while Holly is rescued. Gabriel threatens to kill Ginger, who he knows is a DEA agent, unless Stanley re-siphons the money back to a
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...
bank. Although Stanley complies, Gabriel shoots Ginger. Gabriel and his men load the hostages onto a bus and demand a plane wait for them at the local airport, but while en route, the bus is lifted off by an
S-64 Aircrane and deposited on the roof of a local skyscraper. Gabriel deactivates the bombs and departs with his surviving men on a waiting helicopter, which Stanley shoots down using a
rocket-propelled grenade
A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) is a shoulder-fired missile weapon that launches rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. Most RPGs can be carried by an individual soldier, and are frequently used as anti-tank weapons. These warheads are a ...
from the bus.
Roberts takes Stanley to verify a corpse they found, believing Gabriel was a
Mossad
Mossad ( , ), ; ar, الموساد, al-Mōsād, ; , short for ( he, המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים, links=no), meaning 'Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations'. is the national intelligence agency ...
agent. There is no record of a DEA agent named Ginger Knowles, and her body hasn't been found. Stanley recognizes the corpse as the one he discovered earlier and personally realizes that the whole scenario was a deception; Ginger was wearing a bulletproof vest and was working with Gabriel all along, who escaped via a different route. Despite Stanley not telling the police that Gabriel and Ginger are still alive, Roberts arranges for Stanley to have full custody of Holly, where they depart to places elsewhere. In Monte Carlo, Gabriel and Ginger withdraw the stolen money and later watch as a yacht at sea explodes. Over the film's credits, a news report reveals the destruction of the yacht, carrying a known terrorist, as the third such incident in as many weeks.
Cast
Reception
The film received press initially because word leaked out early that Halle Berry was doing her first topless scene, paid an extra $500,000 on top of her $2 million fee. Critics said the scene looked forced, just to garner press. "Halle Berry Nude" jumped to the top of search engine results. Berry said she did the topless scene, knowing it was gratuitous, to overcome the fear of appearing nude onscreen.
, 25% of the 138 reviews compiled on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
are positive, with an average rating of 4.35/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "''Swordfish'' is big on explosions, but critics dislike how it skimps on plot and logic. Also, the sight of a person typing at a computer just isn't that interesting." In a review for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'',
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic.
Biography
Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually be ...
wrote:
The film grossed over $147 million in worldwide box office receipts on a production budget of $102 million.
John Travolta's performance in the film earned him a
Razzie Award
The Golden Raspberry Awards (also known as the Razzies and Razzie Awards) is a parody award show honoring the worst of cinematic under-achievements. Co-founded by UCLA film graduates and film industry veterans John J. B. Wilson and Mo Murphy, ...
nomination for Worst Actor (also for ''
Domestic Disturbance
''Domestic Disturbance'' is a 2001 American psychological thriller film directed by Harold Becker and starring John Travolta, Vince Vaughn, Teri Polo, Steve Buscemi, and Matt O'Leary.
Plot
In Southport, Maryland, Susan Morrison, recently divor ...
'').
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was produced by
Paul Oakenfold
Paul Mark Oakenfold (born 30 August 1963), formerly known mononymously as Oakenfold, is an English record producer, remixer and trance DJ. He has provided over 100 remixes for over 100 artists including U2, Moby, Madonna, Britney Spears, Mass ...
, under
Village Roadshow
Village Roadshow Limited is an Australian company which operates cinemas and theme parks, and produces and distributes films. Before being acquired by private equity company BGH Capital, the company was listed on the Australian Securities Ex ...
and
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
and distributed through
London Sire Records, Inc. It contains 15 tracks. The film's orchestral score was written by
Christopher Young
Christopher Young (born April 28, 1957) is an American composer and orchestrator of film and television scores.
Many of his compositions are for horror and thriller films, including ''Hellraiser'', ''Species'', ''Urban Legend'', ''The Grudge'', ...
with several electronic additions by Paul Oakenfold. Fragments from the score were added to the official soundtrack, but were remixed by Oakenfold. A more complete release was issued as an award promo, which is known for its rarity.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swordfish (Film)
2001 films
2001 crime thriller films
2000s heist films
2000s spy thriller films
American crime thriller films
American heist films
American spy thriller films
Films about computer hacking
Films directed by Dominic Sena
Films produced by Joel Silver
Films scored by Christopher Young
Films set in Los Angeles
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films shot in Monaco
Films shot in Oregon
Films with screenplays by Skip Woods
Malware in fiction
Silver Pictures films
Techno-thriller films
Village Roadshow Pictures films
Warner Bros. films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films