Katy and I went to go see the new Harrison Ford movie, Firewall, Friday night. Overall, I thought it was a pretty good movie. Should it go down as a Harrison Ford classic? I don’t know. Harrison was definately in his best element, the soft-spoken nice guy who ends up having to kick some butt. This is usually the role that ford does best, a’la Patriot Games, Clear And Present Danger, and Air Force One.

The difference with this movie was that he wasn’t playing Jack Ryan or Indiana Jones. He was playing a bank security software engineer. This isn’t exactly a great role for him, but he does his best. The story works well, though predictable. A bad guy holds Harry’s family hostage and forces him to break into the bank’s software and take millions of dollars. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but of course, it works out ok in the end.

The only real trouble I had with the film was the music. Movie scores are a big deal to me. I can watch a great movie, but if the musical score stinks, then I’m not going to think it was a great movie. The music has to work in order for me to really enjoy the movie. In this film, the music was sort of overbearing. Every time there was a dramatic moment or thrilling sequence, the music was really overdone and seemed to overplay the actual drama that was happening on-screen. And it wasn’t great music either.

Other than that, there were just a few scenes that made me think that the director was young and inexperienced. The action was good, Harrison was good, and the villan was good.

There is one scene in the movie that I absolutely loved. I hate to spoil it, but it’s just too good not to share. There is about a one-minute scene where a secretary has to retrieve a cell phone from a co-worker, who happens to be at a contemporary church worship service, playing bass guitar in the worship band. I don’t think the director or writer of this film intended for this to be a humorous scene, because no-one else in the theater was really laughing, but I couldn’t contain myself. The depiction of contemporary church is off from many contemporary churches in reality, but dead-on for some. The band was “rockin” and the congregation was swaying and clapping, singing nothing but these words: “Praise Jesus…..Jesus, Jesus……..Praise Jesus…..Jesus, Jesus”. Again, I was cracking up at this. I was tearing up in laughter because, though it wasn’t intended to mock church, it was in fact mocking church, and I guess I tend to enjoy mocking church, no matter how close to home it hits.

So, that scene alone made the ticket purchase worth it, but the movie as a whole was quite enjoyable. This is not an amazing, must see movie, but it’s definitely a decent Harrison Ford movie. I’ll give it three out of four stars.