| Sword Fish... | 
      
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        | Movie
        Review: Sword FishStarring: John Travolta, Hugh Jackman,
        Halle Berry, Dominic Sena
 
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        | Swordfish asks us to buy Hugh Jackman as the worlds greatest computer
        hacker. So much for credibility;  | 
      
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 | Jackman looks like someone who spends far more time honing
            his washboard than tickling his keyboard.
 Which, come to think of it, makes him perfect for a leading role in Swordfish, a big, dumb
            action movie that goes bang a lot and concerns itself less with making sense than with
            making noise. In that regard its a pretty typical Joel Silver production. Like
            Silver masterworks Demolition Man and Lethal Weapon 4, the film places a premium on plot
            developments that result in shattered glass while
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        | taking only token swipes at character development and
        narrative coherence.
 It does, however, blow stuff up in magnificent fashion. Swordfish opens with a tense
        hostage standoff that
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            | leads to perhaps the most spectacular movie explosion of all
            time. John Woo and Michael Bay, eat your hearts out.
 Fleshy John Travolta plays Gabriel Shear, a rogue government agent who
 masterminds the cyber-theft of billions of dollars from a DEA slush fund. Travolta does
            nothing to improve his stock here, delivering many of his lines in a hushed, soulless
            monotone. But while his character does some bad things, he says some smart things, so we
            grudgingly kind of like him.
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        | Shear needs an assist from Jackmans super-hacker Stanley, who agrees to
        help because he needs  | 
      
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 | money to battle his ex-wife for custody of their daughter.
 Halle Berry plays Travoltas partner-gal pal. She looks almost as incendiary as the
            choreographed fireballs.
 
 We never lose sight of the fact that Berrys character is totally superfluous. But
            eye candy is all we have to sustain us while we mark time until the grand finale, an
            impressive bus-helicopter getaway.
 
 This overcooked Swordfish wont satisfy the discriminating palate.
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        | But it opens and closes with panache, and provides enough empty calories
        in between to keep the hunger pangs at bay until a more substantial action film comes
        along. 
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