FIREWALL--FOREVER...AS IN DEAD?

Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) has got it made. The security designer of a high tech, Seattle based bank, he basks in all the trappings of a conventional, American as apple pie Harrison Ford style hero: bright, devoted wife Beth (Virginia Madsen); two noisy but wholesome kids (Carly Schroeder and Jimmy Bennett); a killer house tailor made for an episode of "Cribs" designed by his bright, devoted, AND architect wife; and a cute dog named Rusty who, as it turns out, will play a more significant role in film's heavy handed third act than either Beth or the kids. Sounds perfect, doesn't it? Almost too good to be true, right?

Wrong! In FIREWALL, the new Richard Loncraine thriller, Jack Stanfield and his straight arrow portrait of middle aged, domestic and professional bliss, will be thrown for a hazardous loop. Written by Joe Forte and directed by Loncraine ("Richard III," "Wimbledon") said hazardous loop comes in the shape of Bill Cox (Paul Bettany), a sophisticated thief who, along with four droogs, takes Stanfield's family hostage and presents him with a particularly dangerous, clear and present dilemma. Either Stanfield hack into his bank's state of the art computerized vault and wire ONE HUNDRED MEELYON dollars into an awaiting offshore Cox account or his family will be executed.

FIREWALL opens with a cleverly devious extended sequence detailing the Cox team's secret web cam surveillance of the unsuspecting Stanfield household. Among the creepier elements of this grainy montage are shredded credit card statements being pilfered and meticulously stitched together, and the recording of pizza being delivered to their front door. These scenes pinpoint with terrifying, anonymous clarity just how brazenly simple, with a little will and the right equipment, it is to infiltrate a family's financial records and day to day habits and hold them accountable for it.

As these provocative espionage sequences show, Cox has clearly done his homework (Right down to exploiting a Stanfield member's allergy to peanuts) and seems to have hatched an elaborate, failsafe means to a mighty pay day end. Only there's one thing Cox underestimated. Jack Stanfield. As embodied by Harrison Ford, audiences must be predisposed to assume he won't stand to play patsy for long with his life and the lives of his wife and kids on the line, oh no. It's just a matter of time before the metaphoric whip and fedora come out (In FIREWALL it's actually a laptop and IPOD) and Stanfield, as exemplified by the ageless, defiant heroism of Ford, liquidates the bad guys and goes home happy. Sure he may get manhandled a bit. Sure his family may stare down the threatening end of a gun now and then. Sure all hope may now and then appear on the brink of being extinguished. But rest easy. By the end, Ford being asked to save the day and gruffly complying should come as no surprise.

What does come as a bit of a surprise is how ridiculously contrived some of the proceedings come off as. While the A's and B's of Cox's scheme are fiendishly inspired and smack of Lex Luther style depravity (Bettany appears just as at home playing manipulative brutishness as he does effortless charm), and audiences may feel a twinge of hold your breath anticipation as Stanfield tries to thwart Cox even if for most of FIREWALL this slippery villain can hear AND see his every move, some things ring howlingly false. For instance Robert Patrick's visiting, watchdog security specialist. His only function is to be suspicious of Stanfield, and the timing of his appearance at the bank couldn't be more flimsy. Elsewhere Stanfield, on the run from Cox, just so conveniently happens to sneak into a colleague's apartment at the precise moment to eavesdrop on a plot to frame him. Rubbish.

Most egregiously, there's the credibility tanking matter of Rusty the dog. Viewers may be puzzled as to why Cox would choose to bring a pet whose owners he plans to murder anyway on a kidnapping trek, but this preposterously turns to Stanfield's advantage. It also inspires a memorable line viewers would be hard pressed to expect in a thriller. "What are you doing?" a sympathetic character asks Stanfield near the end, to which he excitedly responds, "I'm gonna find my dog!" This bizarre (And bizarrely funny) quip serves as the tip off for FIREWALL to descend into a typical, action heavy face off between Stanfield and Cox whose outcome should really surprise nobody except those who have never seen a Harrison Ford vehicle before. Unfortunately, Forte and Loncraine are not among them, or else they might have come up with a conclusion more original, more suited to film's intricate techno babble. Alas what viewers get is suitably rah rah intense and by the book mechanical.

Besides Ford, who can do heroism in his sleep, and Bettany, who makes a very convincing cold hearted creep, the rest of FIREWALL's cast is surprisingly expendable. Poor Virginia Madsen. "Sideways" rescued her from portraying B movie hussies, but now she appears on the verge of being similarly typecast as the blah devoted wife in need of rescuing. She is plainly effective, however, even if it wouldn't have killed Forte to add more meat to her character. Alan Arkin briefly appears, and seemingly for no reason. And Robert Forster, so great in "Jackie Brown," again finds himself the victim of another thankless role (See "Mulholland Drive"). Only Mary Lynn Rajskub registers as Stanfield's secretary Janet, who plays almost as pivotal a function in securing the old Stanfield peace and harmony as Rusty.

There are a few noteworthy moments in FIREWALL, though. "Honey, I need to borrow your IPOD," Stanfield asks his daughter, Sarah, under intense pressure from an increasingly impatient Cox. "Will I get it back?" she asks. Ahhh, she may be a hostage, but still so wonderfully innocent. An episode where Stanfield tries to switch a button sized camera Cox has pinned to him without drawing attention is terrific (Even though wouldn't it have been better for Cox not to let on that they could see everything he was doing at the office?) But FIREWALL, like so many routine Hollywood thrillers, is all build up and zero payoff. It's particularly a shame considering the imaginative theatrics Loncraine brought to the riveting "Richard III." As Cox says, "Don't imagine for one second that I just blundered in out of the rain." FIREWALL starts off smartly, but blunders over pothole size cliches on its way to a lackluster finish.