A covert counter-terrorist unit called Black Cell led by Gabriel Shear wants the money to help finance their war against international terrorism, but it's all locked away. Gabriel brings in ... Read allA covert counter-terrorist unit called Black Cell led by Gabriel Shear wants the money to help finance their war against international terrorism, but it's all locked away. Gabriel brings in convicted hacker Stanley Jobson to help him.A covert counter-terrorist unit called Black Cell led by Gabriel Shear wants the money to help finance their war against international terrorism, but it's all locked away. Gabriel brings in convicted hacker Stanley Jobson to help him.
- Awards
- 5 wins & 10 nominations
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThomas Jefferson did NOT shoot a man on the White house lawn for treason. This movie is the source of that rumor.
- GoofsIn the film's opening speech, Gabriel Shear discusses Dog Day Afternoon (1975) as being a "1976" work of "fiction" that didn't "push the envelope" and showed Hollywood's "lack of realism." Dog Day Afternoon was a true story, not fiction, depicted realistically. While the film didn't adhere to every detail of the true story, the ending was accurate. It was released in 1975, and the film's action takes place in 1972.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Gabriel: You know what the problem with Hollywood is? They make shit. Unbelievable, unremarkable shit. Now I'm not some grungy wannabe filmmaker that's searching for existentialism through a haze of bong smoke or something. No, it's easy to pick apart bad acting, short-sighted directing, and a purely moronic stringing together of words that many of the studios term as "prose". No, I'm talking about the lack of realism. Realism; not a pervasive element in today's modern American cinematic vision. Take Dog Day Afternoon, for example. Arguably Pacino's best work, short of Scarface and Godfather Part 1, of course. Masterpiece of directing, easily Lumet's best. The cinematography, the acting, the screenplay, all top-notch. But... they didn't push the envelope. Now what if in Dog Day, Sonny wanted to get away with it, REALLY wanted to get away with it? What if - now here's the tricky part - what if he started killing hostages right away? No mercy, no quarter. "Meet our demands or the pretty blonde in the bellbottoms gets it the back of the head." Bam, splat! What, still no bus? Come on! How many innocent victims splattered across a window would it take to have the city reverse its policy on hostage situations? And this is 1976; there's no CNN, there's no CNBC, there's no internet! Now fast forward to today, present time, same situation. How quickly would the modern media make a frenzy over this? In a matter of hours, it'd be biggest story from Boston to Budapest! Ten hostages die, twenty, thirty; bam bam, right after another, all caught in high-def, computer-enhanced, color corrected. You can practically taste the brain matter. All for what? A bus, a plane? A couple of million dollars that's federally insured? I don't think so. Just a thought. I mean, it's not within the realm of conventional cinema... but what if?
- Crazy creditsThe last credit reads "Final Password: Vernam", which is part of the website game. (See Trivia). A Vernam cypher is a method of encrypting a message.
- Alternate versionsAlternate television takes were shot for the scene with Ginger at the pool (she wears a bikini) and where Stanley hacks into the main frame of the Departement of Defense (Helga is not there).
- ConnectionsFeatured in Conversations with Jerry Bruckheimer (2000)
- SoundtracksDark Machine
Written by Paul Oakenfold and Andy Gray
Performed by Paul Oakenfold and Christopher Young
Courtesy of London-Sire Records
First of all, the plot as other reviewers have mentioned, is sieve-like. The opening sequence, while interesting, is used over and over again later in the film--We get it, you blew most of your budget on that. Not to mention, that a terrified, and screaming teen-aged girl is blown to bits. It appears that they wanted to get the reaction that most of the positive reviews have noted: that slo-mo 360 pans of a bomb's effects are really cool. Not withstanding that innocent people are killed and a city block is decimated.
Next, the only actor to escape relatively unscathed is Hugh Jackman, although I bet he wishes he'd chosen another movie. Let's hope his next pairing with Halle Berry is much better.
Now to some of the many incomprehensible situations in the movie:
You detain a ostensibly "Finnish" but inexplicably German-speaking hacker but leave him alone and unguarded so that two Euro-trash thugs can trick you with a misleading phone call and prance into an federal interrogation area with guns brandished?!
The hacking is so silly and unbelievable. Stanley (Jackman) sees the system they want him use and gapes incredulously merely because it has multiple monitors running a screen-saver?! And cracking 128-bit encrypted passwords only takes him 60 seconds! Wow, why he didn't he clean up his record or create a new identity for himself? He is a super-genius, after all.
Oh, it's ok that Travolta's character steals money and kills innocent people. He's doing it for the common (read American) good. So what if his plans to nuke cities, etc. will result in the deaths of innocent civilians around the world including Americans?! Truly despicable plot-line.
Also, the only female characters in this movie are bimbos or victims or both. I guess that's one of the main rules of mainstream action flicks--misogyny is normal and justified.
O stars from me. There is nothing to like and many things to actively hate in this stupid, morally empty, pathetic excuse for a film.
- nana-15
- Oct 25, 2002
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Swordfish_
- Filming locations
- Ventura, California, USA(Location)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $102,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $69,772,969
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $18,145,632
- Jun 10, 2001
- Gross worldwide
- $147,080,413
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1