Harrison Ford's Firewall character is clearly the busiest bank employee in history, not to mention the most efficient. In the film's first five minutes or so, he foils a hacker, touches base with each of his significant co-workers, establishes that his perfect wife (Virginia Madsen) and obnoxious children are spending a quiet week at home together, antagonizes the executive handling his bank's impending merger with a larger chain, and generally sets up every plot point that's going to come into play over the next hour and a half. It's almost admirable how neatly the film's entire potential gets packed into those initial scenes, from Ford's personal ethos to the triggers for half a dozen little plot twists and turns. But while Firewall rivals Die Hard for narrative streamlining, watching all the pieces drop snugly into place can feel more like watching a Tetris game than like a film.
