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A story which was apparently dug out from somewhere in the 90's (maybe even the 80's) in which Harrison Ford returns in his old age to play the character that made him famous - the tough, quiet and straight-arrow action hero. This time he is a quiet and straight-arrow banker, a security systems expert, whose bank is facing a merger with a rival bank, and a gang of ruthless criminals invades his home and takes his wife and children hostage to in order to force him to open the Bank's security systems and help them rob it. But a man like Ford will not go down quietly, and is ready to go all out for the people he loves. The truth? I'm not so sure they deserve his love. His wife is clingy, nagging and totally helpless (Helloooo!) although she is supposed to be a successful architect (which does not prevent her from being the perfect housewife at peace with herself). She can't even lead the only (failed) escape attempt in the entire Movie without her husband. The little boy is also helpless - well, yes, he is sick, but that shouldn't have prevented him from demonstrating some minimal control of home computer and communications systems, and he had to be taught not to trust the bad guy who deceived him and almost killed him not once but twice. And the daughter, oh, these American empty headed teenage girls, what right do they have to exist at all, especially in a situation where other people's lives may depend on them?
There are two people in the Movie that our hero supposedly should have trusted - one of them is his partner (initially suspected of collaborating with criminals but revealed to be squeaky clean) and the other is the bank's new chief of security (Robert Patrick, The X-Files' Agent Doggett, Ret.) An obnoxious character indeed, but what can you do if he is the only one with the minimal brains and ability to figure out what is happening and get to the truth, and he takes a hell of a beating from hero (without so much as an apology).
Why did I say the story was dug out from the 90's? We have already seen communications and computers systems which are far more modern, sophisticated and reliable; What is most annoying is that of all the systems we have seen in the Movie, only one does what it's supposed to do for our hero (although he does display a considerable skill for taking a fax machine apart and putting it back together again, and for fixing his son's electronic toy), and that is a third generation cell phone with a camera. The problem is that owner of the phone is a guy I wouldn't even trust with the safety pin holding together my baby's diaper (not that I have a baby), and the young man is the one asking the experienced adult for help in dealing with the attempt to break into the bank, and also with overcoming the stubbornness of the girl he is tirelessly courting, the same girl who is the only female character in the Movie with some degree of initiative and resourcefulness (except for the bank official who triggers the silent alarm when our hero asks for her help but has a change of heart and atones for her actions when she realizes who he really is, but she doesn't count). While our hero is not credited with a history as an anti-government hacker, it would seem that the first generation of computer geeks/hackers has really settled down and matured and reached the highest levels of the establishment (including banking) they fought against when they were young.
In conclusion, a watchable Movie, just don't expect too much…
And
is it just my imagination, or are the two children too
young for a father Ford's age?
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