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Director:
Richard Loncraine
Cast:
Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Jimmy Bennett, Virginia Madsen,
Robert Patrick |
MPAA Rating:
PG-13 for some intense sequences of
violence. |
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Review:
 When
does an action star get too old? It's hard to say, but just about
now, Harrison Ford has reached that point. He's just on the cusp
of achieving old-fart-dom, and it shows. However, that doesn't
necessarily mean that this is a lousy picture. Far from it.This is
a much smarter picture than it has any right to be.
Mr. Arlin (Alan Arkin), the president of a local Seattle bank, is
in the middle of negotiating a merger with a larger one, and that
means that our hero, Jack Stanfield (Ford), the head of security,
is going to have a new boss(Robert Patrick). His old one(Robert
Forster) is negotiating a new job of himself and Jack somewhere
else with a guy named Bill Cox(Paul Bettany). But there's a hitch.
It seems that Bill is in fact an evil international criminal,
who's been watching Jack and his family for quite a while in order
to pull the crime of the century.
So, using the latest technology, he and his wicked crew kidnap
mom(Virginia Madsen)and the two kids(Carly Schroeder and Jimmy
Bennett) and, after tying everyone up, raid the fridge. The bad
guys are generally colorless, although they all have potentially
interesting personalities, which works. Mom and Dad plan escapes,
which of course don't work, and that causes dangerous mayhem while
Bill forces Jack to figure out how to steal a hundred million
dollars from the bank and send it to Bill's secret account in the
Cayman Islands.
Not only that, he has to fire his secretary Janet (Mary Lynn
Rajskub). This is the lowest cut!!!! You can't do that to Cloe!!!
However, he does and there's just enough excitement and action to
keep one interested. This isn't a great movie, but it does what
it's supposed to. Now the real problem is Ford. He looks too damn
old for the part, and acts it. But we can live with that as the
rest of the movie is perfectly fine. As thrillers go, this is
definitely worth a matinee.
Eric Lurio
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