John Travolta stars as Gabriel Shear, a fun-loving ruthless killer who heads up a clandestine antiterrorist organization for the U.S. government. His organization has a funding problem. It's not that they don't have any. The funds are in the bank earning interest. They were left over from other illegal, but government-sanctioned, activities. Unfortunately, acquiring them through normal channels would cause a scandal. So, Shear hires a hacker to electronically transfer the money and then does what any normal sociopath would do: breaks into the bank in broad daylight with a team of submachine-gun-toting goons who shoot the place up, blow up a hostage, and provoke a major standoff with an army of mentally-challenged SWAT team guys.

If only this were the Insultingly Stupid Movie Logic Page we could rant about the break-in. If they had to do it, surely they could have done it more quietly, like maybe using the doors instead of driving Hummers through the windows. Even if they wanted the attention, it seems like they would have transferred the money before deliberately attracting every cop in the county.

We can't figure out why they wanted to withdraw their money in the first place. It had supposedly grown from $400 million to $9.5 billion in 15 years. This works out to around 23.5% compounded interest per year. Why not just figure out a way to live off the $2.23 billion a year in interest.

The movie's computer mumbo-jumbo isn't worthy of a C++. Stanley (Hugh Jackman), the hacker hired for the job, has just done serious slammer-time for being caught, is under surveillance by the FBI, and hasn't touched a computer in years. Yet, put a gun to his head and he can crack into a high-security system in a matter of seconds using a stranger's laptop.

Luckily Stanley "can see the code" in his head, since there's never any on his computer-screen. He is given access to a computer that's supposedly the ultimate hacking machine and giddily programs a bunch of 3-D graphics for the bank job. Stanley cleverly plans to foil the bad guys by writing his program so that it will delete the funds a few days after they've been transferred. This feature accidentally runs ahead of time during the bank break-in when he's surrounded by bad guys. Oops, must have been the exploding hostage.

Each of the hapless hostages had been locked in special detonator collars and C-4–filled vests bedecked with 20 pounds of hardened steel ball bearings. Of course the SWAT team guys couldn't figure this out and attempted to rescue one of the hostages, with predictable results. The explosion sent cars flying through the air with ball bearings turning everything within a 50-yard radius into a sieve.

Considering the explosion's force vector, we're at a loss to explain the flying cars. The cars should have been pushed sideways. Inertia of the cars is another problem. Explosions occur in very short time intervals. So, the force needed to overcome a car's inertia and accelerate it into the air would be extremely large. Unfortunately, car bodies aren't designed for such forces. A violent explosion would hit a stationary car like a speeding bus. The car would be demolished, not thrown in the air.

Even with flying cars, Swordfish's bad physics would not be particularly memorable were it not for the bearings. They appear to be about an inch in diameter which would give them a volume of 0.524 cubic inches per bearing. Using 0.284 lbs per cubic inch as the density of steel gives a weight of 0.149 lbs per ball bearing. This would mean each hostage was adorned with about 134 bearings.

When a hostage blows up we can assume that the bearings would be projected outward in a uniform hemispherical pattern. At a distance of 50 yards, the hemisphere would have an area of 141,372 square feet. If the bearings were uniformly distributed, one bearing would strike in the middle of each 1055 square feet of area. In other words, about one bearing would hit a 32 × 32 foot wall in the path of the explosion. This would hardly be enough to turn it into a sieve. Even at 10 yards there would be less than a 30% chance of hitting a standing adult male with a single bearing.

Keep in mind, if enough people see this movie it could become a commercial success. If this happens, we will have to endure the insultingly stupid bearing gimmick in every movie bomb scene from now to forever. Don't say we didn't warn you.