Swordfish (film)

Swordfish is a 2001 American action crime thriller film directed by Dominic Sena and starring John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle and Vinnie Jones. The film centers on Stanley Jobson, an ex-con and computer hacker who is targeted for recruitment into a bank robbery conspiracy because of his formidable hacking skills. The film was a slight box office success and was negatively received by critics upon release.

Plot

Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is a hacker. Having served time for infecting the FBI's Carnivore program with a computer virus, he is now on parole but forbidden from touching computers. His alcoholic ex-wife and porn actress Melissa (Drea de Matteo) has sole custody of his daughter Holly, and a restraining order preventing him from visiting Holly. One day, he is solicited by Ginger Knowles (Halle Berry), speaking for her boss Gabriel Shear (John Travolta), for his hacking skills. He goes to meet Gabriel in Los Angeles, where he is put on the spot to crack a secure government server within a minute while simultaneously held at gunpoint and receiving fellatio. Successful, Gabriel offers Stanley $10 million to program multi-headed worm, a "hydra", to siphon $9.5 billion from several government slush funds.