Behind the scenes of ‘Firewall’ with Harrison Ford and Paul Bettany

Two hours is all computer specialist Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) has to perform a series of illegal transactions before his family is murdered by kidnapper Bill Cox (Paul Bettany).

Jack works as a top-ranking executive for Landrock Pacific Bank in Seattle where he protects the bank’s financial holdings from the ever-growing threat of Internet hackers by designing perplexing networks of access codes, tracers and firewalls.

Jack’s life is great. He lives in an ocean-front community with his wife, Beth (Virginia Madsen), and their two kids Sarah (Carly Schroeder) and Andrew (Jimmy Bennett).

His extensive experience with security systems does not prepare him for what is about to occur. The last thing that Jack could have ever imagined was happening; he, himself, was being monitored under constant surveillance with a combination of parabolic microphones, an arsenal of digital video recorders and a series of devices that monitor online activity and phone calls. Cox knows the names of family friends, financial transactions, medical histories and the I.D. code for their security gate.

Cox ambushes Jack’s house and holds his family hostage, but he doesn’t want Jack’s money; he wants Jack to funnel $100 million from Landrock Pacific Bank to his offshore account.

The bank is being taken over by a large corporation, which intensifies his situation as his operating procedures are under harsh scrutiny and essential equipment needed to perform this series of transactions has been moved off-site. Jack is forced to work with what he has, finding loopholes in his own technology to perform the jeopardous transactions that could incriminate him in the process, but leave Cox untraceable.

He has to save his family.

Joe Forte (writer)

“This is a movie about vulnerability,” said screenwriter Joe Forte. “The idea that someone evil could attach himself to you and worm his way into your life like that both fascinated me and creeped me out.” Although it is unlikely to happen, “it can potentially happen to anyone.”

“Firewall” is Forte’s first produced film; however, this graduate of the NYU film school is no stranger to Warner Bros. Pictures. He sold his second script ever, “The Great Mahala,” to Warner Bros. Pictures.

Forte also landed a deal with Paramount Pictures in 2005 to adapt the novel “Out” written by Natsuo Kirino, winner of Japan’s top mystery award, as well as selling an “Untitled Drama” to Paramount Pictures in May 2005 with Lorenzo DiBonaventura and Meg LeFauve (“Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys, Baby Dance”), with his wife producing.

For “Firewall,” Warner Bros. Pictures collaborates with Village Roadshow Pictures, a Beacon Pictures/ Jon Shestack/ Thunder Road Production of a Richard Loncraine Film to present this action-packed thriller.

Richard Loncraine (Director)

“Predominately, this is a thriller rather than an action movie,” said Loncraine. “It’s about tension; it’s a duel between these two men.”

One of the most difficult tasks for Loncraine was setting and sustaining a “noir-ish mood and keeping the tension high.” This is not your regular thriller. Loncraine’s vision was to maintain a nice, homey, everyday setting-not mysterious- for the Stanfields.

“If you have someone creeping down an alley with a knife and there’s a child up ahead in the lamplight, it’s not difficult to make that tense,” said Loncraine. “But if you have a man at a computer, talking on the phone to someone sitting calmly on the sofa at his house but who could very well put a gun to his child’s head at any moment, that’s harder. The challenge was to charge these home and office environments with danger. We used their mundane quality against them. If you can’t be safe in your own living room, then where?”

The portions of surveillance tapes were kept as realistic as possible to bring reality to the screen. “We shot it all on DV cameras and video, high 8 and 8mm so it has an unprofessional look; in fact, we did it as badly as we could,” said Loncraine. “Nobody directed it. I wanted jerky frames, blurriness, crash zooms and audio that sounds like tapped phone lines.”

Although Seattle is known for rain, a special affects coordinator, Tony Lazarowich (“Scary Movie 3”), reports using 280,000 gallons of water in six weeks to simulate rain in various scenes. “Rain trusses” supported by 80-ton cranes were used to shoot the downtown scenes.

Loncraine brought in banking security specialist, Lawrence T. Levine to assist with the banking scenes by implementing technical dialogue after touring a Los Angeles area bank and back office for design ideas.

“Ultimately, I don’t think it’s important that the audience understands all the technology,” said Loncraine. “But it’s essential that they believe the characters in the movie understand it.”

Loncraine wanted the physical battles to be just as real. The emotional elements and intensity are what Loncraine was seeking.

Harrison Ford

“It’s a relatively short but brutal and intense fight, and it’s quite original,” said Ford. The 63-year-old actor still performs original stunts. “I still enjoy it, working out the choreography and the details and then the execution, rolling around on the floor. It satisfies the audience’s sense that justice must be meted out before the curtain comes down.”

Veteran stunt coordinator Bill Ferguson choreographed the scene and has more than 20 years of experience working with people like Charles Bronson and Burt Lancaster. “When it comes to actors who can handle action, Harrison’s one of the best,” said Ferguson. “He can take punishment I would expect from a stunt guy. He did his own stair fall, he went through the window and hit the ground; he’s done his own driving and the fight in the house, not to mention days of rehearsals with me throwing him around and bouncing him off walls or him throwing me around. He knows all the angles, he knows where the cuts are, the beats between each move. He’s knows exactly what’s going on.”

Madsen had a few choreographed scenes of her own defending herself and her children from the team of accomplices, but speaks candidly of her embarrassment in performing the very physical actions compared to Ford. “I was walking around with a limp one day, checking out a couple of fresh scrapes and feeling pretty macho and then there’s Harrison, diving through windows and crashing through walls and then he just gets up and dusts himself off and he’s fine.”

Though he proclaims not to be an action hero, Ford has had his fair share of physical roles, such as the “Indiana Jones” series: “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “The Young Indian Jones Chronicles” and “Indiana Jones 4” is expected to hit theatres in 2007.

With over 60 movies and television episodes under his belt, Ford looks forward to working some supporting roles in the future. “I am interested in playing supporting parts. There’s another thing, though. Like a fireman, I don’t want to role out on a little trash fire in a dumpster. If I’m going to pull on my boots I want to fight the big one.”

With all the roles that Ford has played (“Star Wars,” “Patriot Games,” “Air Force One,” “Clear and Present Danger,” “Six Days Seven Nights,” “What Lies Beneath,” “Working Girl,” “American Graffiti,” etc.), “I don’t have a favorite,” he said. Every role brings a new adventure and new people.”

As for the movie “Firewall,” Ford said that he enjoyed working on it and also enjoyed working alongside UK actor, Paul Bettany. “Paul is a remarkably visceral, instinctive actor. What an actor brings to a role is not only his capacity for believability in that part but his understanding of what serves the film and the relationship overall. Paul has that. He’s able to step outside of his own character to see the film as a whole and to support those themes that go beyond his own performance.”

Paul Bettany

One of the closet off-screen relationships on the set was between Ford and Bettany. “Harrison and I spent most of the time on the set laughing,” said Bettany. “I don’t know if it was to relieve the tension or just because he’s a very droll, funny man.”

Creator and executer of the master plan to force Jack Stanfield into siphoning $100 million in funds, Bettany sees his character, Bill Cox, as “essentially a businessman. He does whatever is necessary to get the job done. He’s also a thief and a psychopath, but I don’t think he sees himself as a cruel man. It’s not personal. He has simply decided to make a lot of money very quickly and using Jack is the most logical and expedient way to achieve that end.”

Director Loncraine spoke very highly of Bettany as an actor. “Paul can turn from chalk to cheese in an instant. The family [in the movie], to a certain degree, believe him when he promises that everything is going to be all right.”

Loncraine and Bettany collaborated previously in 2004 for the romantic comedy “ Wimbledon,” which earned Bettany an Empire Award nomination for his performance as a professional tennis player.

“I know Richard Loncraine very well,” said Bettany. “We’re all great friends. We all laughed a great deal.”

Plot

“We’re moving beyond the age of old-fashioned bank robberies,” said “Firewall” producer Armyan Bernstein (“The Hurricane,” “Air Force One” and “Thirteen Days”). “It’s an electronic world and vast sums of money are controlled by codes and keyboards.”

Ford adds, “People’s belief that their computers are secure is far from the truth. It only depends upon someone having a clear ambition, plus the expertise and energy to break into your system, as well as a compelling reason to do it. I think most people are safe only because they simply don’t have things the bad guys want.”

Actors

“The combination of Harrison and Paul is what really makes this exciting,” said Loncraine. “So much of it is pure chemistry; you cannot buy it and you cannot manufacture it.”

“Firewall” is an emotional, action-packed, must-see thriller that hits theatres Feb. 10.

- By Rhonda Barnett, Editor in Chief