Firewall 2006 by AverageMansReviews

Firewall 2006 by AverageMansReviews

Review Time: this film is poor

Fundamental elements: there are voice-over elements, background music, cultural elements, quick moving effects, no subtitles when another language is being used, time jumps and place jumps.

Movement: this film is painfully slow, yes it does pick its feet up roughly in the final quarter or somewhere around here, but this film does feel much longer than roughly 105 minutes

Storyline/Back stories: the storyline is either on its own merit or combined with the movement is terrible based on the facts that as I have already said for the majority of this film it never seems to get going at any great speed or  an engageable tempo, so consequently when it does show signs of life it feels like a mad dash to fit everything in and on top of that the viewers will feel cheated, because this title has a question mark style ending for an ending from this perspective as our lead character/performer has so much explaining to do with his family to the place he works and the authorities, but the audience will never find out because the ending credits begin

Back stories; they either get shown to us by reconnaissance [photographs in the opening credits] or discussed in the dialogue exchanges and there is a little bit of a storyteller element as well as this character/performer is trying to get the children to think about something else, where they are somewhere else other than here

Action sequences/Artistic visions: there are weapons being used, combat and chasing, our lead character/lead role does this little jump down to enter this apartment, the artistic visions are around this lake and Lake House, these small scenes are good.

Character developments/Performances/Blooper: now this is where I get to really tear into this film; so let's begin we have an eight-year-old boy [Andy Stanfield] which is allergic to nuts and a 14-year-old teenager [Sarah Stanfield.] So Andy is friendly towards the main criminal [Bill Cox; he knows a lot about this family including Andy's dietary requirements in this scene where Cox is making pancakes and then our lead character [Jack Stanfield] basically tells him not to be which this is fair enough, as you will see/read more of this review you will understand why I am putting this all in here.

Later on in this film; we have Cox and Andy; Cox promises Andy there is no nuts in these cookies; which by this point we and this family have seen what this criminal with his associates can do; which as an eight-year-old based on what his Father had said [I know as an eight-year-old we would probably ignore our parents sometimes, but in this case at this point he had seen/experienced what these characters were like,] so why didn't he just say no or walk away or if walking away wasn't an option at the very least put up a fight, just anything just not willing.

Moving on to Sarah; now in this scene her Father says "Honey I need your iPod?" With that she asks "Will I get it back?" With that he says "Sure I promise." So let me get this right you have this highly dangerous situation going on and all this 14-year-old teenager can think about is her iPod, I can't be the only one thinking this 14-year-old teenager needs to look around at the situation she and her family are currently in to realize that her iPod is not the biggest deal right now

Moving on to Cox; so he and his associates have done all this reconnaissance on this family; is that right? So why didn't they do this job a week earlier because the item they need would still be here, but now it has been moved to somewhere else, because of this merger which this main criminal should know about. You know his to do list should have been; reconnaissance on this place then this item and then this family, come on even The Wet Bandits [from HomeAlone 1990] did better reconnaissance than this. On a quick side note before someone points this out; this duo goes under a different name in the 1992 sequel; The Sticky Bandits, but seriously Cox should have seen the bigger picture instead of just a small component of Jack and his family.

The more I am thinking about it Jack's Secretary [Janet Stone] in this scene as he is aggressively entering her apartment seems to take on board what he tells her without too much fuss minus the fuss before and during him wrapping himself around her and on top of that there is misleading character developments as it relates to [Harry Romano,] by this small telephone call sequence it has been designed as if he is in on it as well as this big reveal. I have two things to say about this; 1. It was too early to reveal this. 2. Without giving too much away, it is/was a pointless waste of time, I mean I was leaning towards Harry being involved somehow anyway, they really should have restructured this sequence and tried to keep the mystery going, like have this telephone call just from Cox's perspective.

Generally speaking the character developments are the standard for this kind of film and nothing special, the performances are likewise nothing special I mean yes there is cosmetic chemistry/friction but feeling it is there is nothing there.

Blooper; I have chosen to see this as a blooper because I find it strange and it bugs me and this is something for you to look out for. Now Jack enters Harry's apartment he is wet; he very casually goes for this little yellow hand towel which is situated in this wooden unit thing first of all what is this yellow hand towel doing here [I mean I know it is meant to be here for this reason,] but to cover up this fact here Harry could have left out some clean washing; you know he will put it away after coming home from work that kind of thing, so when Jack is in this scene he sees this pile of washing and uses a hand towel and secondly Jack could have slowly drifted towards the computer at the same time as doing this, just to try and keep the film going and not make it look/feel like it is, as this scene is; it's like I feel by his body language he is saying "Give me two seconds to dry off and I will continue with the film." When you see it you will understand why I find it so strange and it bugs me, it's like we are an inconvenience for that moment.

This film receives: 1/10, now I have done this review I never have to see this film again unless for some strange reason I lose this review.

Last updated: Thursday 27/02/2020