Psst - This section will contain some inside trivia about the film.
Quotes - Good one liners from the movie.
Oops - Goofs From the movie.
Director - Dominic Sena
Screenplay - Skip Woods
Fast Paced intense yet predictible thriller about a Secret Government Agent Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) who wants to crack a 1024 bit encrypt code so that he can hack in to the U.S. DEA Slush Fund worth nearly a billion dollars and fund his own private army to stop foreign terrorists from attacking USA. He forcefully hires former hacker Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) whose previous criminal record has not only seperated him from his wife (Camryn Grimes) but also forbided him from meeting his own daughter. Stanley joins Gabriel only to learn that there is much more then stealing a billion dollars. Right from the memorable starting scene where John Travolta gives one of the most memorable dialogue deliveries ever, to the climax, movie doesnt let the viewer down. Worth a watch.
Psst -
1) Barely a month after the release of the film, On September, 11, 2001, There were 4 terrorrist attacks in USA. 2 of them had completely destroyed the World Trade Center Buildings in New York and one had destroyed a part of the Pentagon.
2) Dominic Sena’s previosu directorial venture was Gone in 60 seconds.
3) One of the producers was Joel Silver whose ventures include Die Hard and the Lethal Weapon Series. This explains the top notch action sequences in the movie.
Quotes
1) ’’You know what the problem with Hollywood is? They make s***. Unbelieveable, unremarkable s***. Now I’m not some grungy wannabe filmmaker that’s searching for existentialism through a haze of bong smoke or something. No, it’s easy to pick apart bad acting, short-sighted directing, and a purely moronic stringing together of words that many of the studios term as ’’prose’’. No, I’m talking about the lack of realism. Realism; not a pervasive element in today’s modern American cinematic vision. Take Dog Day Afternoon, for example. Arguably Pacino’s best work, short of Scarface and Godfather Part 1, of course. Masterpiece of directing, easily Lumet’s best. The cinematography, the acting, the screenplay, all top-notch. But... they didn’t push the envelope. Now what if in Dog Day, Sonny REALLY wanted to get away with it? What if -- now here’s the tricky part -- what if he started killing hostages right away? No mercy, no quarter. ’’Meet our demands or the pretty blonde in the bellbottoms gets it the back of the head.’’ Bam, splat! What, still no bus? Come on! How many innocent victims splattered across a window would it take to have the city reverse its policy on hostage situations? And this is 1976; there’s no CNN, there’s no CNBC, there’s no internet! Now fast forward to today, present time, same situation. How quickly would the modern media make a frenzy over this? In a matter of hours, it’d be biggest story from Boston to Budapest! Ten hostages die, twenty, thirty; bam bam, right after another, all caught in high-def, computer-enhanced, color corrected. You can practically taste the brain matter. All for what? A bus, a plane? A couple of million dollars that’s federally insured? I don’t think so. Just a thought. I mean, it’s not within the realm of conventional cinema... but what if?’’
2) ’’Have you ever heard of Harry Houdini? Well he wasn’t like today’s magicians who are only interested in television ratings. He was an artist. He could make an elephant disappear in the middle of a theater filled with people, and do you know how he did that? Misdirection.; What the f*** are you talking about?; Misdirection. What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.’’
3) ’’Oh, come on, Stan. Not everything ends the way you think it should. Besides, audiences love happy endings.’’
Oops
1) When Shear and Jobson meet for the first time and shear shows him the laptop, At one point we can see that the laptop is shut.