SWORDFISH

SWORDFISH. Dominic Sena, dir. Skip Woods, script. John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, featured players. USA: Jonathan Krane Group [us], NPV Entertainment, Silver Pictures [us], Village Roadshow Productions [us], Warner Bros. [us] (prod.—IMDb) / Warner Bros. (dist. [Silver Pictures and Warner given final places in credits]), 2001. Frantic Films, SpFx.

Mostly "mundane" caper/paranoia movie that can be seen as a very-near-future cyberpunk film, except without the zaibatzu and with relevance to the US Iran/Contra scandal. The caper involves electronic theft of funds by a computer hacker, with associated shots of complex icons on computer screens and following electronic pulses along banks of wires. Note also motifs of surveillance, electonic collars on humans rigged with explosives, and a punk/hip, mostly detached attitude toward the American establishment and terrorism and against those resisting the American establishment and terrorism. In its quieter moments, the film seems at least as serious as W. Gibson's Neuromancer (q.v. under Fiction) about issues of ethics and politics, raising the always relevant issue of ends and means: most directly, is it permissible to kill people—including mere bystanders—if one can achieve good goals thereby?