Swordfish

Dominic Sena opens on his villain. John Travolta’s Gabriel Shear sits in a coffee shop taking apart Dog Day Afternoon: a fine picture, he says, that refused to push its premise far enough. Then the frame widens: a tactical squad is already crouched at the door. The relaxed talk about movies has been the last minutes of a hostage siege. Gabriel walks out, a hostage detonates, the screen goes dark and the story jumps back, returning there only at the end. The explosion was captured by an array of 35 mm stills cameras wired to fire with the blast. Frantic Films, a Winnipeg outfit of fewer than twenty people, assembled the frames after winning the job against Industrial Light and Magic. Nothing about the computer work is meant to be plausible: breaking into a system is staged as a three dimensional object spun in mid air rather than as typing. Hugh Jackman plays the encryption specialist just out of prison, Don Cheadle the agent tracking him, Sam Shepard the senator above it all. A good fit if you want the opening con, where the film plays on you the trick its villain just described, to count as the point, not a cheat. Not for viewers who need the intrusion scenes to resemble a real procedure; the interface is pure invention.