Grade: D+ | Genre: Action/Suspense Summary: Basically, it's a film that treads over ground we've seen hundreds of times to date and offers up nothing new for us to sink our teeth into. The goal seems to sufficiently vegetate the audience rather than intrigue them.
Its truly sad when once great actors become synonymous with bland filmmaking. Instead of being gracefully put out to pasture, they overstay their welcome, going through the motions without feeling and completely devoid of heart. Harrison Ford set the standard for tense action thrillers with nail biters like Patriot Games and The Fugitive yet these days he's a paycheck player, getting plugged in as the lead in the latest tepid action feature on the market. Remember stellar, gripping films like Hollywood Homicide, Six Days Seven Nights and K19: The Widowmaker? I didn't think so. The latest stink bomb is Firewall, pulling out all the formulas and wallowing in its own mediocrity. Shouldn't there be a mandate that guys like Ford, DeNiro and Pacino can't soil their brilliant body of work, slumming it in every half-baked project that gets green lighted through Hollywood? |