Yep. Finally got to see a movie again (the last one was Family Stone in SG), and my movie buddies consisted of Consuelo, Joyce and Lola. Friday night at the Promenade, Greenhills (“a dinetertainment for all!” is their positioning statement). The movie: Harrison Ford’s FIREWALL. The consensus: Filipinos have finally invaded Hollywood!
Here’s the basic plot as stated on the Press Screening ticket,” Harrison Ford stars as a bank security expert Jack Stanfield, whose specialty is designing infallible theft-proof financial computer systems. But there’s a hidden vulnerability in the system he didn’t account for –himself. When a ruthless criminal mastermind kidnaps his family, Jack is forced to find a flaw in his system and steal $100 million. With the lives of his wife and children at stake and under constant surveillance, he has only hours to find a loophole in the thief’s own impenetrable system of subterfuge and false identities to beat him at his own game. “
Virginia Madsen plays the role of the architect wife Beth. Her acting is stoic, very controlled, in fact, to me it came out to be a little stiff. There are scenes that would require panic and at the least worry would be etched on Beth Stanfield’s face, but she acts it out like it’s a SNAFU (techies and consultants use this term often- Situation Normal All Fucked Up). I worry about that. If it was a Filipino scriptwriter, Beth’s character would be doing any or all of these: hysterically shouting, panicking, slapping or hitting the villain in spite of the fact that that act would be futile. In contrast, I saw Virginia Madsen in Sideways and I believe she did a wonderful job there, as did many, garnering her first Oscar nomination last year. It was a relaxed performance, and you can almost feel like you know exactly what she was thinking when she tells Miles Raymond why she likes wine, “I like to think about the times when the grapes were planted, about the people who lived at that time, what their stories were, their pains, what they were feeling.”
The story starts out suspenseful, and the climactic atmosphere is almost sustained throughout the movie because of some original twists to the plot. The pacing reminds me of 24 (Today is the longest day of my life), except Keifer Sutherland’s 24 is far more fast-paced, and you always get the tonality that there is an imminent danger throughout the episodes (almost, except when Kim Bauer is onscreen). It looked like lives were really at stake there. In this movie, the viewer is left with moments to breathe and the mind sometimes starts to wander, but the riveting plot pulls one back in.
However, when everything seemed to fall apart for the villain, that’s when the movie started falling apart, too. At one point Jack surprises Cox (the mastermind villain) by shattering the glass window and jumping on him, I uttered, “Wow, that is so Hollywood”. The climax is of course a fight scene between the hero and the villain (that’s why they got Harrison Ford to do this, but his face is now starting to get lumpy you wonder whether a man his age can spring back up that fast after being pushed over).
When another villain fires his automatic riffle towards the oncoming car driven by Stanfield, I am shocked because although the shooting was almost pointblank, Jack did not take a single hit! Not only that, Jack kills this firing villain by ramming him up to a deserted garage (or was it a barn?). The gunfire and the sudden impact of the car results to an almost instantaneous explosion, blowing the car up in big flames. To top it off, Jack was able to escape while he was seen trapped inside the car! The next scene pans him unscathed, ready to pounce. At that point I told Cielo, “Fairy tale naman ito. Niloloko naman tayo nitong Hollywood na to e” , to which Cielo replied, “ Oo nga eh.”
But the best review was from Joyce, “Mam tawa kami nang tawa. Siguro may Pinoy na scriptwriter dun o kaya stunt director. Para kasing naging Lito Lapid
movie dahil sa ending. Kulang na lang yung eksena na sinasakal ng kalaban ang bida habang ang isang kamay ng bida eh hawak ang mukha ng kalaban, pilit nyang aalisin ang kamay ng kalaban sa leeg nya at makikita mo sa screen na mangingiwi ang mukha ng kalaban hanggang sa manalo na ang bida”If you’re a True Pinoy, you'd know how the story ends. You can almost picture it. Gory ending involving a death by: (Choose from the following):
(a) They fight using bare arms, they kick and pull at each other’s faces some more until finally the villain suffocates. The hero has more reasons to live.
(b) They fight lengthily and end up in an overly dramatic scene like a dug out pit. They fight over a sharp object like a pick-axe, killing the villain, leaving him in the dug out pit. A death truly befitting the bad guy.
(c) They fight over a gun. The hero almost has it, but the villain tugs it away. They punch each other until finally they grab the gun at the same time killing the villain, but you are made to think the hero was the one shot.
(d) They fight over a knife which happened to be lying around the area, and in a surge of adrenalin, the hero manages to kill the villain in the most gruesome way with the knife ending in an original area of the body (eye socket, heart or neck)
Harrison Ford’s acting pulls the story together and makes the story plausible. Well, almost. You can hear the anguish in his voice as he calls out to his wife at the end of the scene. He comes out of the deadly duel weak, staggering, and in a final burst of emotion a tear comes out of his eye while he calls out to her. Beth hears the anguish in his voice, and yet she takes hesitant steps in coming out to him. You hear that despair you go out to your man like hell, girl. After all, you may have designed the house by the sea, but your husband paid for it.
*****
As a fitting ending, I found this on the internet:Battle of the Brainless
Quiz Master: Sino ang pumatay kay Magellan? Clue "LL" ang kanyang initials. (Note: correct answer is Lapu Lapu)
Erap: Lito Lapid, Jr.?
Quiz Master: Mali, Lito Lapid, Jr. was not even born at that time!
Alma Moreno: E... di si Lito Lapid Sr.?!
Quiz Master: Wrong! Another clue "inuulit-ulit ang pangalan n'ya.
Erap: Ah alam ko na! LITO-LITO!
Quiz Master: Mali! Alma Moreno: LAPID-LAPID?!
http://nebriaga.com/philippines/brainless.html
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