I could feel sorry for Harrison Ford. Hollywood may think women's lives end at 40, but it's not very nice to action stars, either. Once those pecs and abs start heading south, so do the box office and the career. Steven Seagal hasn't had a theatrical hit in years. Sylvester Stallone? Remember him? Rocky? Rambo? Driven? At least Ahnuld had the foresight (or desperation) to turn to politics. What's a man of action to do when no one seems to care anymore whether he can still be a hard ass? And after the inauspicious trio of K-19, Hollywood Homicide, and now Firewall, Ford appears to have lost his tough-guy touch. The horror, the horror.

But I don't feel sorry for Harrison Ford. For one thing, he didn't have to suffer the fate of the Seagals, Stallones, and Schwarzeneggers. Ford was the kind of action star in the Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies who relied as much on his wit as on his physical feats. His body was important, but it was never the whole show. For another, Ford also seemed to have more talent — or at least a little more imagination about what to do with the talent he had. After all, he first appeared during the artistically celebrated moment of 1970s Hollywood, making a distinct impression in small roles in George Lucas's popular nostalgia-character piece American Graffiti and Francis Ford Coppola's paranoid gem The Conversation. Even amid the Indiana Jones-Han Solo juggernaut, Ford still earned his artistic stripes with Witness, The Mosquito Coast, and the title closest to many a young cineaste's heart, Blade Runner. And he proved an adept romantic-comedy foil in Working Girl. By the 1990s, he was sitting pretty (or rather, ruggedly handsome) atop the stardom heap with The Fugitive. He could emote and kick ass. He was a man both men and women could love. I certainly dug Harrison Ford. I reveled in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, and I have no patience for Tom Clancy as a writer. Ford as Jack Ryan: that I could enjoy. He was just so... smart. Resourceful. No-nonsense. And able to kill the bad guy when necessary in defense of his nice family.

Ford plays the same kind of role in Firewall. The exact same kind of role with the same first name — and that's exactly the problem. It's not 1994 anymore, and Firewall's Jack Stanfield is no Jack Ryan. Stanfield is the kind of part in a throwaway movie that makes one wonder just how much money one movie star needs. It's also the kind of part that's infuriating when one ponders the declining quality of big Hollywood popcorn movies. He's Harrison Ford, for Pete's sake. Why hasn't he used his star power to make something good? Risky? Interesting? Entertaining? Coherent? Other stars have done it and it's paid off in one way or another. Ford did it throughout the 1980s. He should have done it throughout the 1990s. He could have done it into the new millennium, using What Lies Beneath as something of a springboard (certainly not his best movie, but at least his role had something resembling layers).

Instead, he did something very foolish for a star who was aging out of his bread and butter genres. He dropped out of Traffic. Michael Douglas replaced him, earning great notices and adding a prestige hit to his resume. Forget the disclaimer about hindsight. Traffic was a good risk for a star in Ford's position. Steven Soderbergh had already directed George Clooney to his best performance at that point and Terence Stamp to his best performance in years in, respectively, Out of Sight and The Limey. And it was an ensemble film — if it bombed, Ford wouldn't have to take all the heat. But no. No, no, no. Instead of doing Traffic, he took the fat paycheck to star in K-19. Which bombed. And tarnished Ford's luster as a box office draw in action thrillers. Maybe Firewall is karmic punishment for being that much of a movie choice moron.

But does he have to make the audience suffer as well? Because Firewall is anything but a good time. For a few minutes, it threatens to have some potential, what with the jazzy, edgy title sequence that lets us know Someone Is Watching, and it probably isn't someone with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. As Ford's Jack purposefully goes about his day as some bank's grouchy yet "brilliant" electronic security czar, though, that sinking feeling sets in. Ford can mouth the technical jargon about "black holes" with sufficient flare, but the lines themselves aren't so convincing. Indeed, every character interaction has a fetid sheen of artificiality, whether it's the ultra-Christian computer jockey trying to woo Jack's secretary Janet, or the smoothy executive from the company acquiring Jack's bank who, naturally, rubs Jack the wrong way. Maybe it's the fact that all of the actors, including Ford, look vaguely like they have ants in their pants or some other preoccupation (perhaps lunch or their agent's fee) that's preventing them from really committing to their performances. Or maybe it's the fact that we all know something bad is going to happen, and we just wish it would start.

Alas, that doesn't help. Or rather, when the plot really gets rolling, then it becomes starkly clear what's wrong with this movie: everyone in the supporting cast seems to have taken the same stupid pill once the bad guys arrive on the scene. For instance, if Robert Forster is supposed to be a security wiz and retired law enforcement type, then why doesn't he notice that Paul Bettany's American accent is about as good as Kevin Costner's hilarious attempt to sound "British" in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? Or, say you're a little boy who's old enough to have watched his share of cheesy crime movies and played his share of video games. Would you really think it would be okay, nay, fun, to make breakfast pancakes with the heavily armed men who have stormed into your house and taken your family hostage? And then accept a cookie from the freaky blond British guy in charge of the armed men even though you know you have life-threatening nut allergies?

Then there are the numerous pointless detours and missed opportunities that simply wind up being time-wasters. Why, you might ask for example, did the writer decide to make the techie with the crush on Janet and the convenient camera phone an evangelical Christian? Who knows. Jack and Janet's brief stop to retrieve the phone at the rockin' church service where the techie is playing in the band does nothing to either up the thrills, make us intentionally laugh, or develop character. And really, if you're going to subject us to Janet having a jalopy that Jack must roll-start to get going, then at least give us the pay-off of having it crap out at the worst possible moment. But no. It's the miracle beater that suddenly fixes itself.

Then again, maybe Jack has the miraculous powers. See, it isn't just that the plotting is sloppy and characters suddenly take leave of their brains. It's that Jack is the only one around who seems to have the wherewithal to do anything. He can draw conclusions about Bettany's elaborate plot that require rather astonishing leaps in reasoning. He can fashion high-powered computer scanners out of fax machines. He can decipher a cell phone photo that looks hopelessly blurry even when shown on the big theatrical screen. He can talk the poor benighted Janet into doing all sorts of things that most women in their right minds might refuse. And he's the one to whom his family constantly turns for help and salvation. He's the Man. Well, of course he's the man. He's Harrison Ford.

So where does that leave Jack's wife Beth? Standing around acting helpless, naturally. If I'm going to feel sorry for anyone in Firewall, it's Virginia Madsen. Here she is, fresh off of Sideways co-starring with Harrison Ford, and what does she get to do when the bad guys take over her house and threaten her children? Wag her finger at them and tell them (loudly) to leave her children alone. Come on. She's in the kitchen, something's frying on the stove, and she can't even make one attempt at defending her children with something more than her finger? Like, I dunno, that heavy cast-iron frying pan filled with hot oil? How about a pot of boiling water? That kitchen is stuffed with potential weapons besides the carefully hidden knives. Why is Harrison Ford the only one allowed to smack someone with a coffee pot? Is he really so vain that he can't risk being shown up by one of his female co-stars? Maybe that's the real reason why Mary-Lynn Rajskub's Janet gets left standing by the side of a dirt road holding the Stanfield family dog while Ford stalks off alone, manfully, to save his family. And why Madsen constantly screams for Jack and cowers instead of doing something, anything, that might constitute action.

This is not a mere idle complaint about this iteration of the Ford hero. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Karen Allen gets to show a little spirit alongside Ford's whip-smacking Indy. In Blade Runner, Ford's Deckard tangles with two potent female replicants, and gets a life-saving assist from love-interest replicant Rachael. And one thing I always did like about the first Star Wars trilogy is that Princess Leia gets to wield a mean gun even after she becomes Han Solo's girlfriend. Anne Archer and Thora Birch weren't simply left to be mewling idiots in the Jack Ryan movies, either. In short, Ford was a strong enough man as a hero to share screen time with women who could do more than look helpless. Now that he's getting a bit long in the tooth and deep in the facial lines, however, he just can't seem to do that anymore even though he's starting to look like he really could use a little assistance.

That's perhaps the greatest disappointment of all about Firewall. For an actor who used to project such down-to-earth humor and strength, it's dismaying to see Ford choose to throw his star weight behind an empty project just so he can prove that he's still capable of taking punches, flying through windows, and single-handedly eliminating all of the evildoers with house wares, guns, and a well-placed pick ax. Step aside, ladies, grampa Ford is here to save the day. Then again, I wasn't all that surprised that the ladies had to step aside to let Harrison do his thing by himself. After all, when I first got a look at Paul Bettany looming over Ford as he walked behind him, I couldn't help thinking, "Oh, he's going to pay big time for making Harrison Ford look short." And that's a shame.


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