YMMV / Firewall

• Catharsis Factor:
  • Cox stabbed in the back with the pickax.
  • Liam getitng his head bashed in and Pim being hit with the car and immolated in the shed also both count.
• Cliché Storm: An unsurprisingly common complaint from most reviews is that the film is very predictable and that it continues to use Hollywood tactics that really offer nothing new to action, crime, and yuppie thriller films. The movie is also considered more or less an excuse to see Harrison Ford be a badass once again by taking out the bad guys.
• Critic-Proof: Subverted, as this type of movie had an unusually high budget and therefore didn't make any money back. But that didn't stop it from making $82.8 million worldwide, with a little over half of that coming from the domestic box office alone, despite being critically panned.
• Memetic Mutation: "Change of plans" was often the highlight of the marketing to the point that someone made a parody trailer in which the main character used that line constantly—more often than not at points when it wasn't warranted or needed.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • While it's very easy to get the sense early on that Cox is a cold-blooded psychopath—whether or not killing Willy or nearly having Andy's arm broken did so—the idea is all but convincing the moment he poisons Andy with his peanut allergy to leverage his life completely in that instant and insure Jack helps him no matter what. And this was also before he kills Harry as part of his plan and Vel for turning aganst him as well.
  • Liam crosses the moment he tries to kill Jack. While threatening to shoot Vel and Beth—the latter to force her to leave the incriminating message for Harry saying she was gonna leave Jack for him—one is very brief while the other the details aren't clear on until after Liam's dead. His willingness to break Andy's arm on command could also count.
  • Pim proved an utterly insufferable and mean-spirited moron very early on, but his willingness to both grab Sarah by the throat and let Andy suffocate with the tape on his mouth made him extremely irredeemable without a doubt.
• Retroactive Recognition: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Liam about five years before he became famous for being the one and only "Kingslayer" himself, Jaime Lannister.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: More like they wasted perfectly good stars. Big names like Robert Patrick and Alan Arkin show up as bank managers who serve absolutely nothing to the plot. Virginia Madsen isn't far off as she too doesn't really do anything much as the kidnapped wife.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: While some have criticized the character portrayal of Cox, Paul Bettany's performance is usually considered the best aspect in a film that many have criticized as having mediocre performances. Mary Lynn Rajskub as Janet also seems to be trying.