Review of Swordfish

Introduction

Swordfish was one of last years summer blockbusters so the DVD has been eagerly awaited. Travolta plays Gabriel, a government agent hell bent on recouping $9.5bn from DEA government accounts no longer in use and long forgotten about. The only problem is this is protected by sophisticated computer security and he needs someone good to get at the cash. He sends Ginger (Halle Berry) to fetch Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman).

Stanley works a deadend job on an oilfield doing little with his life. He split from his wife who`s shacked up with some porn merchant and Stan has no access to his beloved daughter, Holly. On top of this he was busted by the FBI and isn`t supposed to touch a computer. Ginger convinces Stan to meet Gabriel with the promise of $100,000, which he can use for a legal case to win custody of his daughter. The buttons are pressed and Stan swallows the bait. All he wants is his daughter. He then enters Gabriel`s domain and gets in way over his head.

Video

Presented with a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, this DVD looks incredible. As with any new film transfer to DVD, the PAL image is crisp, colourful, vibrant and retains a lot of detail. There are very minor amounts of dirt but this really is negligible. It looks fantastic with no signs of compression and remains very impressive.

Audio

The sound design in DD 5.1 works very well with a very wide soundspace. It`s definitely one movie to pump up that little bit louder with the thrills spilling out of all the speakers around you. Very immersive indeed. Sound is used to great effect throughout, though I have to admit that I was reminded of The Matrix on quite a few occasions with some of the sound effects.

Christopher Young and Paul Oakenfold took care of the music and I have to say that I really enjoyed it, so much so that I had to get the soundtrack. I found the music and sound effects to be well balanced and added to the visual appeal. The gunplay and explosions sounded dynamic and punchy without any sound loss and this raised a smile!

Features

So much could have been made to theme the menus here, just to make it fit into the film, but instead these are just static screens. We get the System Folder which is where the extras are held with quite a few special features including DVD-Rom ones too. Profiles of the cast and crew, Director Commentary, Making of, Effects in Focus, 2 Alternate Endings with Director Commentary, Interviews with Travolta and Jackman and a trailer.

To be honest though, the usual level of features presented here is quite superficial and never as detailed or in depth as one would like. The HBO Making of is just 15 minutes long and doesn`t cover a lot and the Effects in Focus covers the final action scene for the bus. What about the opening shot? What about the other effects in play? I was disappointed by the lack of info.

The DVD-Rom stuff is a bit of a cop out too. These take the form of links to the live website so you need to have an active Internet connection to see some of this stuff, and there were one or two links which didn`t work, like the link to the Swordfish website. Why couldn`t all this stuff be kept locally on the DVD itself? There`s one game to play where you have to guess the passwords from clues given to you, and the answers can be found in the film. I have to admit that I was pretty lame at this and only got about five out of ten correct. Your reward for the correct answers is a short interview clip with the cast which plays from the DVD.

Finally there`s the Australian talk show, Rove Live`s interview with Travolta and Jackman and this is one of the better extras on this disc. The only other interesting feature is the Director Commentary with Dominic Sena. He paints a little more of the films` background and production but also tells us too much without letting us figure things out for ourselves. Obvious things don`t need to be spelt out.

Unlock the hidden extras: Planet Rock music video (Title 10); Cast/Crew Interviews (Title 11-18).

Conclusion

Swordfish opens with quite an attention grabbing scene and certainly wowed me when I saw and heard it. Yes it`s no more than a heist but with a key difference. Here we let the seemingly bad guy get off the hook, and Travolta sets us up from the start with his rhetoric on conventional Hollywood cinema. There`s `misdirection` in all manner of places, and this is given to us on a silver platter as he explains to Stanley (Hugh Jackman) the art of Houdini.

The visual style used here is very appealing and certainly not like a lot of films out at the moment. It has a vibrant air about it with everything from the costume and production design, to the cool soundtrack; there`s life in the colours and it`s a pleasure to watch.

The cast too are easy to watch. Travolta as the charismatic Gabriel Shear with his fancy clothes and beautiful TVR sports car, Halle Berry setting the screen alight and hormones on fire everytime she appears and lastly Mr Jackman too. I thought Jackman was very endearing when he plays with his onscreen daughter, those moments for me were a nice distraction from the rest of the film.

Of course the representations of computer graphics and hacking in a film are always cringe worthy at best, but how else do you try to show the audience that something is going on in a way which is comprehensible? What`s here isn`t too bad, I can just about forgive them and just enjoy the spectacle, so I hope the neophytes out there don`t take it all too seriously.

The director, Sena, is getting better and this is a far better movie than his previous film, Gone in 60 Seconds. His commentary on the DVD is quite interesting to listen to as well, so if you get a chance to go through it do so.

As you might guess, this is a no brainer of a movie, but I have to say it certainly delivers the thrills. It is somewhat predictable, but what action movie isn`t these days? Swordfish remains a light and entertaining film with some very cool visual effects, stunts and a bucket full of style. If it sounds like your cup of tea then you won`t be disappointed, it`s good fun. By the way, the Australian DVD has one more feature over the the R1 or R2 disc with the Rove Live Interview.