Swordfish (film)
Encyclopedia
Swordfish is a 2001 crime-thriller film, directed by Dominic Sena
Dominic Sena
-Life and career:Sena was born in Niles, Ohio. He is of Italian-American heritage. His family hails from the town of Bagnoli Irpino, Avellino, Italy. As one of the founders of Propaganda Films, Sena worked primarily in music videos early in his career. Sena directed several of Janet Jackson's...

 and starring John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...

, Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...

, Halle Berry
Halle Berry
Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...

, Don Cheadle
Don Cheadle
Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle, Jr. is an American film actor and producer. Cheadle rose to prominence in the late 1990s and the early 2000s for his supporting roles in the Steven Soderbergh-directed films Out of Sight, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven...

 and Vinnie Jones
Vinnie Jones
Vincent Peter "Vinnie" Jones is an English film actor and retired Welsh footballer.Born in Hertfordshire, England, Jones represented and captained the Welsh national football team, having qualified via a Welsh grandparent. He also previously played for Chelsea and Leeds United. As a member of the...

. The film is an action thriller that was also notable for Halle Berry
Halle Berry
Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...

's first topless scene. The film centers around Stanley Jobson, a ex-con computer hacker
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

 who is targeted for recruitment into a bank robbery conspiracy because of his formidable hacking skills.

In the United States, the film has received a MPAA rating of R for violence, language, and some sexuality/nudity.

Plot

The film begins in a restaurant in Los Angeles where a man (John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...

) discusses Dog Day Afternoon
Dog Day Afternoon
Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Frank Pierson, and produced by Martin Bregman. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, Penny Allen, James Broderick, and Carol Kane. The title refers to the "dog days of summer".The film was...

 before walking off, with numerous SWAT officers pointing guns at him and a disheveled man (Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...

) following him out. They walk to a nearby building with gunmen and hostages strapped with bombs and ball-bearings. One of the gunmen is killed by a sniper; when the hostage is forcibly taken away, the explosives detonate via a proximity trigger, killing her and others. The film then flashes back four days.

Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...

) is a hacker
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

 who infected the FBI's Carnivore program with a potent computer virus
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...

, delaying its deployment by several years. For this, he was arrested by Agent Roberts (Don Cheadle
Don Cheadle
Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle, Jr. is an American film actor and producer. Cheadle rose to prominence in the late 1990s and the early 2000s for his supporting roles in the Steven Soderbergh-directed films Out of Sight, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven...

), convicted of computer crimes and spent two years in Leavenworth
United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth
The United States Penitentiary , Leavenworth was the largest maximum security federal prison in the United States from 1903 until 2005. It became a medium security prison in 2005.It is located in Leavenworth, Kansas...

. A condition of his parole is that he is forbidden from touching, much less using, a computer. His ex-wife, Melissa (Drea de Matteo
Drea de Matteo
Drea de Matteo is an American television actress, perhaps best known for her roles Joey Tribbiani's sister Gina on the NBC sitcom Joey, as Angie Bolen on ABC's Desperate Housewives, and as Adriana La Cerva on the acclaimed HBO TV series The Sopranos, a role for which she won the Primetime Emmy...

), has sole custody over their daughter Holly and a restraining order
Restraining order
A restraining order or order of protection is a form of legal injunction that requires a party to do, or to refrain from doing, certain acts. A party that refuses to comply with an order faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...

 against Stanley from seeing Holly.

While Stanley is at home (a trailer in rural Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

) practicing his golf swing, Ginger Knowles (Halle Berry
Halle Berry
Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...

) shows up to solicit his hacking skills for her boss Gabriel Shear (John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...

). Stanley is apparently recruited at the last minute as a replacement for Gabriel's first choice, Axl Torvalds (Rudolf Martin
Rudolf Martin
Rudolf Martin is a German actor working mainly in the US. He first appeared in off-Broadway productions and then moved on to extensive TV and film work. He has made guest appearances on numerous hit television series and recently started working in Germany as well. He currently resides in Los...

), a Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 hacker of exceptional talent who was arrested by authorities at the airport. Torvalds is later assassinated by Gabriel's men before he can divulge anything about his assignment and who hired him to Agent Roberts. For an initial $100,000, Stanley agrees to meet with Gabriel. He and Ginger fly to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 and meet Gabriel in a night club. Gabriel pressures Stanley right then and there to hack a government system in 60 seconds while simultaneously being held at gunpoint by Gabriel's bodyguard and right hand man, Marco (Vinnie Jones
Vinnie Jones
Vincent Peter "Vinnie" Jones is an English film actor and retired Welsh footballer.Born in Hertfordshire, England, Jones represented and captained the Welsh national football team, having qualified via a Welsh grandparent. He also previously played for Chelsea and Leeds United. As a member of the...

) and receiving fellatio
Fellatio
Fellatio is an act of oral stimulation of a male's penis by a sexual partner. It involves the stimulation of the penis by the use of the mouth, tongue, or throat. The person who performs fellatio can be referred to as the giving partner, and the other person is the receiving partner...

 from a young woman (Laura Lane). Although it was just a test (the gun was not loaded) Stanley succeeded in hacking the system, a feat that Gabriel had not anticipated.

At Gabriel's house he offers Stanley $10 million to write a worm
Computer worm
A computer worm is a self-replicating malware computer program, which uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other nodes and it may do so without any user intervention. This is due to security shortcomings on the target computer. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach...

 that steals money from a secret government slush fund
Slush fund
A slush fund, colloquially, is an auxiliary monetary account or a reserve fund. However, in the context of corrupt dealings, such as those by governments or large corporations, a slush fund can have particular connotations of illegality, illegitimacy, or secrecy in regard to the use of this money...

 to the order of $9.5 billion. Gabriel reveals to Stanley that he works for an organization called the Black Cell that was started by J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

 in the 1950s, which is responsible for retaliatory attacks against terrorists who have attacked Americans. It is currently headed by Senator Reisman (Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...

), who discovers that the FBI has caught onto Gabriel and attempts to pull the plug. After Gabriel refuses to terminate his plans, Reisman attempts to have Gabriel killed, which fails. Gabriel tracks the Senator down while he is fly fishing
Fly fishing
Fly fishing is an angling method in which an artificial 'fly' is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or 'lure' requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting...

 in Bend, Oregon
Bend, Oregon
Bend is a city in and the county seat of Deschutes County, Oregon, United States, and the principal city of the Bend, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area. Bend is Central Oregon's largest city, and, despite its modest size, is the de facto metropolis of the region, owing to the low population...

 and kills him.

Gabriel proceeds with his plan and raids the local branch of the WORLDBANC. He takes hostages, puts explosives on them and deploys Stanley's worm. After stealing the $9.5 billion he boards the hostages and his crew on a bus out of the bank. Gabriel demands a plane at the local airport (a hostage negotiation cliché) but it was a diversion. An S-64 Aircrane swoops down, lifts the bus and releases it on the rooftop of a skyscraper. From the rooftop, Gabriel seemingly departs with his team in a helicopter, which Stanley shoots down with a rocket-propelled grenade. At the morgue, Stanley and Agent Roberts learn that the body recovered from the helicopter is that of a former Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....

 agent named Gabriel Shear, revealing that the "true" Gabriel Shear is still alive.

The end of the film shows Ginger and Gabriel in Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....

 transferring the $9.5 billion into other accounts. The final scene shows a yacht being destroyed while Ginger and Gabriel look on in a smaller boat while a news anchor voice narrates that a suspected terrorist died on that yacht, the third such successful counter-terrorism operation in as many weeks.

Alternate endings

The DVD version contains an alternate ending wherein Ginger is told in the bank that the account is already empty, alluding to the possibility that Stanley has played one final trick on them and taken the money himself. In a companion scene to the alternate ending, Stanley is shown on a trip with his daughter in a brand new RV. While eating at a diner, Stanley is shown transferring many billion dollars to various charities before continuing his trip.

Cast

  • John Travolta
    John Travolta
    John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...

     – Gabriel Shear
  • Hugh Jackman
    Hugh Jackman
    Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...

     – Stanley Jobson
  • Halle Berry
    Halle Berry
    Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...

     – Ginger Knowles
  • Don Cheadle
    Don Cheadle
    Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle, Jr. is an American film actor and producer. Cheadle rose to prominence in the late 1990s and the early 2000s for his supporting roles in the Steven Soderbergh-directed films Out of Sight, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven...

     – Agent J.T. Roberts
  • Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...

     – Senator James Reisman
  • Vinnie Jones
    Vinnie Jones
    Vincent Peter "Vinnie" Jones is an English film actor and retired Welsh footballer.Born in Hertfordshire, England, Jones represented and captained the Welsh national football team, having qualified via a Welsh grandparent. He also previously played for Chelsea and Leeds United. As a member of the...

     – Marco
  • Drea de Matteo
    Drea de Matteo
    Drea de Matteo is an American television actress, perhaps best known for her roles Joey Tribbiani's sister Gina on the NBC sitcom Joey, as Angie Bolen on ABC's Desperate Housewives, and as Adriana La Cerva on the acclaimed HBO TV series The Sopranos, a role for which she won the Primetime Emmy...

     – Melissa
  • Rudolf Martin
    Rudolf Martin
    Rudolf Martin is a German actor working mainly in the US. He first appeared in off-Broadway productions and then moved on to extensive TV and film work. He has made guest appearances on numerous hit television series and recently started working in Germany as well. He currently resides in Los...

     – Axl Torvalds
  • Zach Grenier
    Zach Grenier
    Zach Grenier is an American actor who has worked in film, television and on stage.He appeared in the first season of the television show 24 as Carl Webb, was in Deadwood, and on several episodes of Law & Order...

     – Assistant Director Bill Joy
  • Camryn Grimes
    Camryn Grimes
    Camryn Elizabeth Grimes is an American actress.-Life and career:Camryn is the daughter of Preston Lee and Heather Grimes. Camryn has six siblings, four sisters and two brothers...

     – Holly Jobson
  • Angelo Pagan – Torres
  • Chic Daniel – SWAT Leader
  • Kirk B. R. Woller
    Kirk B. R. Woller
    Kirk Bryan Ramon Woller is an American actor who has had roles in many television shows and movies, but is most notable for his recurring role as Agent Gene Crane on The X-Files....

     – Axl's Lawyer
  • Carmen Argenziano
    Carmen Argenziano
    Carmen Antimo Argenziano is an American actor who has appeared in over 50 movies and around 100 television movies or episodes....

     – Agent
  • Tim DeKay
    Tim DeKay
    Timothy Robert DeKay is an American character actor. His first on screen acting job was as corporate giant Larry Deon on seaQuest 2032. He was a cast member of the series Party of Five from 1997–1999, Carnivàle from 2003–2005 and Tell Me You Love Me in 2007...

     – Agent
  • Laura Lane – Helga

Reception

This film received a great deal of press initially because it featured Halle Berry's first topless scene. She was paid an extra $500,000 on top of her $2 million fee to appear topless in this film. Critics said the scene looked forced, thrown into the film just to garner press, but Berry said she did the topless scene knowing it was gratuitous, just to overcome the fear of appearing nude onscreen.

Only a quarter of the Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

 critics gave the film a positive review, maintaining it with a 26% rating; the website's "Cream of the Crop" reviewers were even less positive.
In a review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...

 wrote:
According to Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo is a website that tracks box office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. Brandon Gray started the site in 1999. In 2002, Gray partnered with Sean Saulsbury and they grew the site to nearly two million readers when, in July 2008, the company was purchased by Amazon.com through...

, the film grossed over $147 million in worldwide box office receipts on a production budget of $102 million. John Travolta's performance in the film earned him a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actor (also for Domestic Disturbance
Domestic Disturbance
Domestic Disturbance is a 2001 thriller film directed by Harold Becker and stars John Travolta and Vince Vaughn. It co-stars Teri Polo, Matt O'Leary and Steve Buscemi.-Plot:...

).

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Swordfish was produced by Paul Oakenfold
Paul Oakenfold
Paul Mark Oakenfold is a British record producer and a trance DJ.-Early Career: 1979–84:Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band. He describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" in a podcasted interview with Vancouver's 24 Hours, stating he grew...

, under Village Roadshow and Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 and distributed through London Sire Records, Inc.
London-Sire Records
London-Sire Records was an American-based record label owned by Warner Music Group, created in 2000 with the merging of Sire Records and London Records. Seymour Stein remained at the helm as CEO. The binding of the two companies, however, proved to be largely unsuccessful...

 It contains 15 tracks.

The film's orchestral score was written by Christopher Young
Christopher Young
Christopher Young is an American music composer for both film and television.Many of his music compositions are for horror films, including Hellraiser, Tales from the Hood, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Urban Legend, and Drag Me to Hell...

 with several electronic additions by Paul Oakenfold. Fragments from the score were added to the official soundtrack, but were remixed by Oakenfold. A more complete release was issued as an award promo, which is known for its rarity.

See also

  • Swordfish (password)
    Swordfish (password)
    The use of the word "Swordfish" refers to a password which originated in the 1932 Marx Brothers movie Horse Feathers. The password has since been used in films, TV series, books and videogames.-Original apparition:...

     – Origin of the film's title
  • Linus Torvalds
    Linus Torvalds
    Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator...

     – The name of the 'hacker/cracker', Axl Torvalds, is an homage to the author of the Linux
    Linux
    Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

     kernel, Linus Torvalds.
  • Bill Joy
    Bill Joy
    William Nelson Joy , commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003...

     – The name of the Assistant Director, Bill Joy, appears to be an homage to the American computer scientist and Sun Microsystems
    Sun Microsystems
    Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

     co-founder, Bill Joy.

Swordfish Leather Jacket

External links

  • Press Release on helicopter sequence from the Erickson Air-Crane
    Erickson Air-Crane
    Erickson Air-Crane Incorporated is an aircraft manufacturing and operating company based in Central Point, Oregon, United States. They are known for producing the S-64 Aircrane helicopter, which is used in wildland fire suppression and other heavy-lift operations.Originally the Sikorsky S-64...

    website
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