‘Password: Swordfish’ reaches its first climax after just a few minutes: a super gangster embodied by ‘Pulp Fiction’ star John Travolta gossips in a café about the hostage classic ‘Dog Days’ in the presence of two men, one of whom we see Al Pacino only the back of their heads. Suddenly the camera perspective changes and we realize we are in the middle of it: Gabriel is surrounded by a SEK.
Then the worst-case scenario occurs: after a police officer makes a mistake, one of the hostages, who had been prepared with explosives and metal bullets, flies into the air in the presence of accomplices, officers, prisoners and spectators. In the best “Matrix” style, a camera circling the landscape 360 degrees captures the spectacle in slow motion. Bullets hiss, windows break, people are pierced with holes. What an excellent start!
This is how “Password: Swordfish” continues
After this explosive opening, the action jumps back a few days. We meet Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman, “X-Men”), a gifted hacker who came into contact with the FBI during one of his last jobs. He is now under observation and is no longer allowed near a computer. One day, however, he is visited by Ginger (Halle Berry, “X-Men”), who makes him a tempting offer: she offers him $100,000 in exchange for Stanley being with her lover, the very wealthy crime boss Gabriel Shear (John Travolta).
Of course there is an ulterior motive: Stanley is supposed to use his exceptional skills to help Gabriel pull off a high-tech bank robbery worth billions. Gabriel even offers him a proud $10 million for this. Stanley initially wants to refuse, but eventually gives in: he can use the money to pay for the best lawyers in the expensive custody battle over his daughter Holly (Camryn Grimes). However, the FBI around Agent Roberts (Don Cheadle, “Avengers 4: Endgame”), who has already caught Stanley once, is waiting for a mistake and also has Gabriel in their sights…
Good old, bad old
‘Password: Swordfish’, which you can get on DVD and Blu-ray or as VoD (for example on Amazon Prime Video), has been around for more than twenty years. And that can be seen in some places in the film by ‘Only 60 Seconds’ director Dominic Sena. However, this does not apply to the James Bond-level action scenes: they are arranged with first-class craftsmanship and do not have to hide from contemporary productions..
In addition to the hostage situation mentioned in the introduction and a spectacular chase in an exotic green TVR Tuscan Speed 6, there is also a breakneck sprint over a slope. What will remain in the memory for a long time is a spectacular bus maneuver on a helicopter hook: this famous sequence alone cost a budget of 13 million dollars and was one of the most expensive special effects in film history at the time.
In addition to some unnecessarily vulgar dialogue, the strikingly flat character of Ginger, which the future Bond girl Halle Berry (“James Bond 007 – Die Another Day”) plays very provocatively, has aged considerably worse. Ginger is almost exclusively reduced to physical characteristics. A first encounter while golfing, during which she wiggles her bottom, is followed by a strangely tense topless scene while reading and a sequence in transparent underwear in which Stanley accidentally makes a revealing discovery on her body.
Even the technical details – but that’s the nature of things – seem a bit outdated from today’s perspective: the Internet was still in its infancy in 2001, and tricky hacker activity is always difficult to capture on film. But Dominic Sena finds elegant solutions: while the construction of “worms” is modeled on flat screens and thus becomes understandable to us, Stanley has to endure additional stresses when hacking – for example, a blowjob from a blonde or the fact that he is holding a weapon hold the head.
A clever Houdini-style twist
However, reducing “Password: Swordfish” to its adrenaline-pumping action scenes wouldn’t do the film justice. The twist-filled story in ‘Rififi’ style also features elements of ‘Mission: Impossible’, hacker thrillers like ‘Sneakers’ or fast-paced hostage dramas like ‘Speed’. And it culminates in an ambiguous finale in the style of a magic trick.
After almost an hour, you can guess that a killer twist is being prepared for the shootdown – not because the script is so transparent, but because the script wants it that way. Gabriel brings into play the name of the famous magician Harry Houdini, who once made entire elephants disappear before the eyes of his astonished audience. And on the straight stretch home the ground is cleverly pulled out from under our feet.
What deception is being set up in “Password: Swordfish” and who is ultimately fooling who is of course not revealed at the moment – but you can find out for yourself and buy the entertaining action thriller for a few euros from providers such as Amazon Prime Video. .