Firewall (film) biography, high resolution photos and videos by Americola 
Firewall (film)
[edit] Americola's celebrity biographies are provided by AmericolaWiki, a celebrity wiki. You can help contribute to Americola and edit this article.
Firewall is a 2006 American action/thriller film directed by Richard Loncraine and written by Joe Forte. Harrison Ford stars as Jack Stanfield, a security expert at a bank faced with a corporate merger and the offer of a new job. Yet the stranger with a job offer is playing a much more sinister game.
Contents
- 1 Plot
- 2 Box Office
- 3 Cast
- 4 Trivia
- 5 External links
|
Plot
The film opens with Jack Stanfield (Ford) leaving his happy, normal wife (Beth), two children, and a beautiful house to go fulfill his duties as Vice President of Security at Landrock Pacific Bank in downtown Seattle. The day goes smoothly until Jack is visited by a collection agency, claiming that he has $95,000 in debts to their online gambling site. He trusts a fellow colleague to take care of it (as he is convinced of some form of identity theft) and goes out for dinner with colleague Harry and potential employer, Bill Cox. After the meal, Harry leaves in a taxi and Jack gets in his car. Unexpectedly, Cox follows him into the back seat. Cox then goes on to tell Jack that his family is being held hostage at their home to ensure Jack's cooperation. He then points a gun to Jack's head and forces him to drive home.
Upon their arrival, Jack sees that, although his family is unharmed, they are under heavy watch by Cox's henchmen. Jack is not told what to do until the next morning, when he is told that he must give Cox $10,000 each from the bank's 10,000 largest depositors ($100 million total). He is outfitted with audio and video devices in the form of a pen and a body microphone, making any intentions to resist useless.
Once at work, Cox makes a surprise visit so that Jack can give him a tour of the facilities and security system. On the way back home, Jack attempts to bribe a henchman into betraying Cox, yet this only results in Cox killing the man. The Stanfields attempt an escape, but the plan barely fails. In retaliation, Cox causes Jack's son to have an allergic reaction and withholds the antidote until Jack acquiesces to their plan.
The next day, Cox forces Jack to fire his secretary Janet Stone fearing she is growing suspicious. Jack downloads the files for the $100 million onto his daughter Sarah's
iPod mini hard drive and then initiates a wire transfer to send the money to Cox's offshore accounts. Cox then sets about wiping his tracks clean, deleting
security data and surveillance tapes setting Jack up to frame him for embezzlement. Returning home, Jack finds the house empty except for Liam, one of Cox's men.
Realizing his time is almost up, Jack beats Liam with a blender. After three blows, Liam is killed. He then tries to call Harry using the unmonitored cell phone but cannot reach his friend. So he sneaks into Harry's apartment to wait for his friend's return. Both Cox and Harry enter. Cox suddenly shoots Harry from behind, using the gun he had earlier confiscated from Jack. Because of this, along with a message planted on Harry's answering machine earlier by Beth as she is held at gunpoint, it appears that Jack killed Harry in a jealous rage over Beth.
Jack runs to the only ally he has left: his fired secretary Janet. He asks her for help, and she provides him with transportation to a local branch of the bank he works at. There, he finds Cox's account and calls him. Jack tells him that there’s been a change of plans and that he is taking the money back. Cox threatens to kill Beth for this, but it is a futile threat. He informs Cox that he will get his money back when Jack gets his family back. Jack tells Cox that he will call him when the banks open to make the exchange before hanging up on him. During the conversation, Jack hears the family dog in the background, and realizes that the family can be located and followed by the GPS tracking unit in the dog's collar. This leads him and Janet to an abandoned house. When Cox shoots one of his own henchman and another chases after Sarah, Jack rams into that henchman and kills him. After confronting Cox, Jack forces him to a final showdown. Jack finally gains the upperhand to kill Cox with a pickaxe and win his family's freedom.
Spoilers end here.
Box Office
Filmed for $60 million, it grossed $80,451,189 worldwide, including $48,751,189 in the
United States and $31,700,000 in foreign grosses.
[1]
Cast
Trivia
- The film was originally called The Wrong Element. It was allegedly changed after actor Kett Turton kept mockingly referring to it as 'The Long Elephant'.[citation needed]
- Richard Loncraine replaced the original director (Mark Pellington) on a recommendation from Paul Bettany, who had already been cast and had starred in Loncraine's film Wimbledon.[citation needed]
- The scene in a church was filmed at Fraserview M.B. Church
- The plot is similar to that of Demond Lowden's novel Bellman and True, the film version of which was directed by Firewall 's Richard Loncraine. Lowden's novel was also the basis for the Kim Basinger/Val Kilmer heist movie The Real McCoy.
- The plot line is similar to a real life robbery (the Securitas depot robbery) that occurred in Southern England on 22 February 2006, twelve days after the movie's release in the USA. The raid was the biggest to date in the history of English crime as armed thieves abducted and threatened the manager (and his family) of a cash storage depot for the Bank of England in order to gain access to over £53 million (approximately US$92.6 million).
- During one scene, the show on in the background that the kids are watching is an episode of ReBoot. During another scene, an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants ("Squirrel Jokes") is clearly audible. The horror film Ghost Ship also appears twice in the background on TVs.
- This is Harrison Ford's first movie in almost three years, the last being Hollywood Homicide in 2003. The hiatus between Hollywood Homicide and Firewall was the longest of his career.
- In one sequence in the film, Harrison Ford's character is driving a car to find his family, but in a brief wide-angle shot you can see his secretary Janet driving the car. This is a flaw that came about because they had already shot the sequence with Janet driving, went back and re-did it, and yet one of the shots taken before the change made it into the final cut.
- Equifax, one of the most widely known risk management companies in the world and which is in the New York Stock Exchange, was a special consultant for the film's crew.
- Harrison Ford's character's house is the same one used in Battlestar Galactica for James Callis (Gaius Baltar), both shot in Vancouver, B.C.
- In 2006, Michael J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame released a humorous audio commentary for the film on their RiffTrax service.
- There are numerous hidden references to Dilbert. Ratberts voice is heard on the TV screen early in the film, and when Ford exits the car to bride the kidnapper with money, Dilberts reflection can be seen on the windscreen. The chef who is cutting the tomato appears to be the Pointy Haired Bosses characters voice actor.
- The film's usage of the ipod is ridiculous and laughable.
