Over done plot fails to impress, subplots found to be distracting

By Kurt Esposito
Summer Editor

As a college guy, there are scenes in Swordfish that play directly to me. Scenes like Hugh Jackman's "predicament" when he is first tested on his hacking skills and John Travolta's explanation on how "Dog Day Afternoon" should have ended ("his boyfriend gets a sex change and they live happily ever after.")

These testosterone-driven scenes as well as a Matrix-esque explosion in the beginning made me want to get up and high five all my friends. It's a shame the rest of the movie could not have been that way. As the plot plows towards a lackluster payoff these moments sparsely occur.

The movie starts with Stanley Jobson (Jackman), who has recently been released from prison where he was incarcerated for two years for computer hacking. He now works in an oil-field, desperately trying to contact his estranged daughter, even though the court has told him not to, and avoiding computers because the court prohibited it.

Ginger (Halle Berry) shows up at his trailer to entice him with $10 million and a chance to win custody of his daughter. Of course, he agrees to perform a mystery task for the mystery employer. A scene of the mystery employer eliminating another employee, who might talk, soon follows. Scenes like this appear in every spy/espionage/thriller movie ever made. And as in all the others, it adds nothing to the movie other than to tell us not mess with the bad guy, duh.

The mystery employer is Gabriel Shear (Travolta), who may or not be involved with Ginger (Berry). The exact nature of their involvement is one of the many sub plots thrown into the movie to give it the feel of an espionage thriller, proving to be only a distraction.

Back to the only story that really does concern the audience: Gabriel also may or may not be the mastermind behind a plot to steal $9 billion saved up by a defunct government agency called Operation: Swordfish. Gabriel needs to use Stanley's hacking skills in order to accomplish the robbery, which involves using worms and hydras. Stanley and Gabriel talk about complicated hacking terminology without any explanation, which makes it hard for computer-illiterate people like myself to feel lost. Perhaps some elaboration would have helped.

We then learn more about the secret robbery plot, which becomes less interesting the more it becomes obvious. It rambles on until it hits that lackluster payoff. I won't give way the secret but no brownie points for those who figure it out ahead of time. It's one of those payoffs where in order for it to work, everything had to be perfect. A little too perfect, which makes it unbelievable.

Movies like this are great until they try to have a plot. I was looking forward to the high suspense ending that the beginning set me up for. Instead I only received a rocket launcher (which is only used once) and a bus flying through Los Angeles (Note: the bus crashing through high rises is not that cool when it is caused by wind.)

This movie is worth the price of admission just to see Halle Berry — whether or not she takes her top off.