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Swordfish
Warner Bros.
MPAA RATING: R for violence, language and some sexuality/nudity
Starring
John Travolta,
Hugh Jackman,
Halle Berry,
Don Cheadle,
Vinnie Jones,
Camryn Grimes,
and
Sam Shepard
A dark counter-espionage action thriller about power, money, sacrifice and 21st-century breaking and entering. (Warner Brothers)
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Skip Woods
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Dominic Sena
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 30, 2001
Video: October 30, 2001
Theatrical: June 8, 2001
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
99 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
88
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
A souped-up roadster of a film, a relentless action flick that looks great and moves with more grace and speed than seems possible.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
A good movie? Hardly. But more than enough to pass a dog day afternoon.
63
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
It's skillfully mounted and fitfully intriguing, but weaves such a tangled web that at the end I defy anyone in the audience to explain the exact loyalties and motives of the leading characters.
63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
The liveliest and most engaging time killer to come out of Hollywood in a long while. It's junk, to be sure, but it is superbly made junk.
60
New Times (L.A.)
Luke Y. Thompson
If you like stuff breaking in THX, Swordfish delivers like no other this year. Bring earplugs.
50
Variety
Todd McCarthy
A half-absorbing, half-ridiculous techno-thriller that often goes too far in search of audience-rousing effects.
50
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
A high-impact, high-powered mess that raises the bar for over-the-topness.
50
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Ridiculous but occasionally fun.
50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
So fast, sleek and riveting it almost makes you expect miracles -- which never materialize.
50
Austin Chronicle
Kimberley Jones
The action is constant, often pointless, definitely gratuitous, and breathlessly fun.
50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
A slick, cynical, nasty piece of heist-film plotting that hides its more obvious logical gaps in techno-babble and distracting spectacles of wanton violence and big explosions.
50
USA Today
Mike Clark
So much luck is pressed with an absurdly overblown finale that 60 seconds will likely be Swordfish's shelf life after a couple of noisy opening weekends.
42
Portland Oregonian
Kim Morgan
Jinxed itself into being nothing but an inane popcorn flick pretending to be edgy.
40
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Noisy and obnoxious, this flashy action picture is so hell-bent on seeming smart that it fairly forces you to think about how fundamentally stupid it is.
40
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Feels like every other action thriller we've seen in the past three years, only it's more annoying -- and, in some cases, more appalling -- because it's trying so hard to distinguish itself.
40
Slate
David Edelstein
By the third big climax the audience started to get impatient with the movie's pointless zigs and zags.
40
Mr. Showbiz
Cody Clark
Swordfish is exactly the kind of nominally high-octane actioner that breeds legions of apologists who will encourage you to "check your brain at the door" before seeing it.
40
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
Another in a long line of middling movies for Travolta, who must have been so stunned to regain his stardom with "Pulp Fiction" that he hasn't stopped working since.
38
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
It's hard to say with certainty whether it's insufficient plot or insufficient interpretation that's responsible for Travolta's waxwork performance.
38
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Not all cartoon violence; there's cartoon nudity, too. Berry was paid a well-publicized $500,000 bonus to bare her breasts in the movie.
30
Village Voice
Michael Atkinson
The story -- is just what fills in the gaps between slow-motion fireballs, Matrix-style frozen mayhem, and Halle Berry's notoriously undraped breasts.
25
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
It's a film that reeks of stupidity and cynicism, one that makes you feel soiled just to have sat through it.
25
San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Graham
This lurid thriller comes to life in fits and starts, and then sinks into the bog of its own cleverness once again.
20
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
An action opera designed to elicit Beavis and Butt-head-level appreciation.
20
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
Turns into a meticulously choreographed bang-by-the-numbers action fantasy that I would accuse of peddling evil if the film weren't so dumb and incoherent.
20
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Nobody really cares about the plot, least of all the filmmakers.
20
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Exhibits rank incompetence on every level.
20
Newsweek
David Ansen
Nutty paranoid thriller.
20
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
An ugly exercise in big-budget carnage.
20
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
A kind of dirty fairy tale in which people with nasty attitudes inhabit a trash-talking, macho world of fast cars and complaisant women.
20
Film.com
Sean Means
John, John, John -- one more bad-guy role in a bad movie and you're going to need another comeback.
12
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
About 45 minutes into Swordfish, the picture degenerates permanently from drivel to sleaze (only a short drop).
10
LA Weekly
Manohla Dargis
The cinema of morons made by morons for morons, Swordfish is everything you expect but worse.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 39 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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