10 Movies Everyone Remembers For ONE Awesome Scene

3. The Bomb Explosion - Swordfish

Taken Liam Neeson
Warner Bros.

Much like Equilibrium, Swordfish is a quintessential turn-of-the-millennium movie, a film that bleeds the early 2000s from its every pore, yet for the most part blurs together with every other blandly effects-driven, hyper-convoluted, star-studded thriller of the era.

Sure, we all remember Halle Berry's much-publicised topless scene - for which she was paid an additional $500,000 - but there is one genuinely well-executed and unforgettable scene right at the start of the movie.

Swordfish opens in media res, kicking off with a glimpse of Gabriel Shear's (John Travolta) bank heist, which chaotically climaxes with one of his hostages, rigged with a bomb, being blown up.

Cue a gloriously stylish 180-degree slow-motion tracking shot of the bomb obliterating the hostage and annihilating all the cops in the vicinity.

Sure, the post-Matrix years brought us many scenes like this, but few were captured with quite this level of technical panache.

Shame the rest of the movie was an unintentional parody of what 2001-era Hollywood thought hacking actually was, though.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.