Gabriel Shear: John Travolta	Stanley Jobson: Hugh Jackman
Ginger Knowles: Halle Berry	Agent Roberts: Don Cheadle
Marco: Vinnie Jones	Holly: Camryn Grimes
Senator Reisman: Sam Shepard	Assistant Director Joy: Zach Grenier
Melissa: Drea de Matteo	Axl Torvalds: Rudolf Martin
Director: Dominic Sena

30 Second Bottom Line: A self-anointed patriot/vigilante wants to finance his terrorist/anti-terrorist organization by using a computer hacker to transfer $9 billion in funds to various accounts worldwide.

Story Line: Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) is the ultimate terrorist; if he learns that the enemy has shot down an airplane, he'll take out their entire Air Force. He operates outside the parameter of the government as the super patriot. We may question his loyalty, but Gabriel has no problem operating in the shadows. Ruthless to the point that he will kill anyone who gets in his way to defend the rights and privileges we have in the US, Gabriel believes that we don't fully appreciate what must be done to preserve those rights.

Ginger Knowles (Halle Berry) is sent by Gabriel to recruit Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) to break into the Department of Defense computer system and determine how to move $9 billion to accounts scattered across the globe, which Gabriel can then control. Stanley is on parole after serving time for - what else? - hacking into FBI files. He also has a restraining order to not see his ex-wife Melissa (Drea de Matteo) or his 10-year-old daughter Holly (Camryn Grimes). With the right amount of money, he can retain the best legal minds that can reunite him with Holly. Although he could go back to jail for leaving the state of Texas, he decides to meet with Gabriel in Nevada after Ginger gives him $100,000 just for the meeting.

At the same time the world's other best computer hacker Axl Torvalds (Rudolf Martin) is detained by customs as he tries to enter the US. When Agent Roberts (Don Cheadle) sees Axl and Stanley on the same airport videotape, he knows that something big is brewing.

As Gabriel pulls Stanley's strings, with the promise of reuniting him with his daughter, Holly, Stanley is forced to become a reluctant hero. Jackman and Berry create some sexual chemistry that was missing from X-Men, which spices things up a bit. However, Ginger could be either a lovely, lascivious flirt who likes to show her breasts or she could be smarter than Gabriel. We're not sure just what she's up to other than it's certainly not the obvious. Of course, no one here is playing this game straight.

Swordfish offers the political intrigue of The Contender, an intensity of terrorism that jets by Dog Day Afternoon and The Siege (Denzel Washington), along with the action of The 6th Day as we see a busload of passengers carried in the air by a helicopter. The plot makes more sense than Mission Impossible 2: (barely) and is just as much fun.

Tell Me More About It: As Gabriel tells Stanley, that one of the keys to success is the art of deception. Reality is what your mind believes, not what is necessarily real.

I liked this movie much better than I expected. Part of my low expectation level was the buzz about Travolta's hairstyle (he is a master of disguise as he tells the Senator) and if it was really true that Berry was paid $500,000 to bare her breasts. An actress showing her breasts for money was an actual plot point in the film State and Main. The pre release focus for Swordfish was less on what the film was about and more on gossip about the making of the film.

This film was released one week before Tomb Raider and in many ways the movies are similar…lots of action, sex as appropriate for PG-13 or R, and a plot that requires you to check your brain at the door. Both are fun with Tomb Raider being targeted squarely at the teenage set while this one is aimed at adults. It is refreshing to see a legitimate R rated movie rather than something that pulls so many punches just to be rated PG-13. The upcoming film Crazy/Beautiful may be the classic ratings victim, by making so many changes to a film to ensure a PG-13 rating. The system is employed to keep the government happy but also to assure that teenagers can be admitted without being with someone 18 or over…as if that stops anyone. It's reported the film may have lost its message and much of its entertainment value by trying to be so PC.

Swordfish has plenty of "eye candy" as we look at the slick use of computers; fancy nightclubs and cars; Halle Berry baring it, topless and in another scene clad in panties and a bra. Ginger looks on as another woman performs fellatio on Jackman (unintended pun) as he "plays" the computer keyboard better than Mozart. There are plenty of car chases with the usual driving through blind intersections. As good as the stunts are, they don't quite measure up to Mission Impossible 2:.

On a more serious note, at a time when a terrorist was recently executed and another has been sentenced to life imprisonment, we are familiar with zealots who commit horrendous crimes against society for what they believe is the greater good. Those who decide to become vigilantes only show us just how important "law and order" is. Bringing them to justice with vigorous pursuit is the only thing that even comes close for society, as well as the individual victims, to obtain a sense of closure.

Swordfish sugarcoats and glamorizes this form of "patriotism" and anyone with common sense knows that the concept of the greater good in this context is foolhardy. I've always tended to lean toward supporting capital punishment, but there is something fundamentally wrong when we know the name of the people who blew up the Federal building and our Embassy, yet we don't know the name of a single person whom they killed. Is it justice that we seek or revenge? And which does the greater good in the long term, executions or life imprisonment?

John Travolta: Lucky Numbers	Hugh Jackman: Someone like You
Halle Berry: X-Men	Don Cheadle: Traffic
Vinnie Jones: Snatch	Camryn Grimes: Days of our lives-TV
Sam Shepard: Voyager	Zach Grenier: Shaft
Drea de Matteo: The Soprano's -TV	Rudolf Martin: Bedazzled
Dominic Sena: Gone in Sixty Seconds