Firewall

—1. Overview
—2. Cast and Crew
—3. Photo Pages
—4. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—5. Posters (Harrison Ford)
—6. Production Notes (pdf)
—7. Spiritual Connections
—8. Presentation Downloads

Action movies make me laugh. I know, they’re not supposed to be comedies, but still, they make me laugh. I mean think about it. Bad guy wants money or power. He generally threatens someone else to get that money or power. He thinks he’s all that. And by the end, he has been killed in some artistically contrived manner and is clearly far from all that.

For as long as the story has been around, it can still be mighty entertaining. But watching people try and fail to do the same thing over and over again? The stupidity has got to either make you laugh or annoy you beyond all means.

My most recent action-flavored form of entertainment was Harrison Ford’s latest, Firewall. No twists, no turns, just straight action. Bad guy wants to use good guy to get money…bad guy loses.

The movie opens with surveillance like images—still photos, video clips, hands going through trash. As the movie’s token bad guy later says to his captives, “Don’t imagine for one second that I just blundered in here out of the rain.� He means business, he’s got a plan, and he has done everything he needs to do to make it happen.

Thus, his plan is set into action. The problem is, his plan and desires are pitted against reality. His greed is pitted against love. His coldly calculated actions are matched by uncalculated actions of caring. And well, let’s just say, he might as well have not made any plans at all. Harrison Ford may be a good twenty plus years his senior, but he sure shows him who’s boss.

At the end of it all, Firewall is an average action flick that is predictably entertaining. It does not delve into questions about human nature or global politics. But even in its simplicity and predictability, it points directly to one of today’s most asked questions—Why not? I know I’ve heard it at least a million times. Why can’t I? Why shouldn’t I? It seems fine, so why can’t I just do it.

There are things we all want. Money, power, happiness, success. You name it. There are also many options for getting those things we want. Specific actions, certain ways of life, impressive looking plans. All of us also know that sometimes those actions and paths aren’t always on the list of right, good, or approved by parents, society, or any higher power we might look to for moral guidance. But still, they seem sooo right, they seem like the only logical option. So how can they be wrong?

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the majority of the world has some sense of right and wrong. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. The biggies. It’s the little things that are difficult, the little things that don’t seem like they are all that bad, that won’t hurt anyone else, that don’t seem to be wrong for any other reason than just because they are.

The sad thing is, we, like the Hollywood bad guys, just seem to keep missing the predictable stories of hardship and failure that always follow. Sometimes it is difficult to see certain actions, choices, or ways of life as more than arbitrarily wrong. But as I think about all the action movies I have seen, I feel like all we have to do is open our eyes to the reality that wrong is wrong for our own good.

Sometimes action movies make me want to laugh at the bad guys for actually believing they are going to get what they want. Other times Hollywood bad guys make me so annoyed with all the effort and destruction they put into an already doomed plan that I can’t help but hate even some of today’s more innovative suspense thrillers.

But as I sit here after paying another visit to the Hollywood action genre this weekend, my amusement and annoyance with every Hollywood bad guy fades in comparison to the sadness of the same stories I see in real life.

Sometimes it is hard to see or understand why wrong is wrong. But as so many stories have told us all of our lives, wrong is very often in the reality that certain choices simply lead to hardship, struggle, failure, and/or pain when there are other options free of any of those.

What we must ask ourselves is: Do we want to be the guy who ends up with no money, a pickaxe shoved through his back, and the entire audience shaking their heads at our stupidity? Or do we want to be the one who saw the pickaxe coming and chose to take a different path?

— Overview