Paul Bettany, left, wonders why Harrison Ford didn't star in The Da Vinci Code. The pair are pitted against each other in Firewall.

Throughout Firewall, Harrison Ford's expression grouchily runs the gamut from furtive consternation to irritated frustration.

We know the feeling.

It's possible to sit through this exceptionally mediocre thriller, true -- it's sufficiently executed with dutifully been-there-done-that work from all involved -- but the question is, why would you?

For fans of Ford -- or the suspense genre -- Firewall merely dredges up the ghosts of superior films, particularly 1993's Oscar-nominated The Fugitive and 1997's silly but superficially exciting Air Force One.

In Firewall, he stars as Jack Stanfield, a bank security specialist whose wife (Virginia Madsen, cashing in after an Oscar nomination for Sideways) and children are taken hostage by a menacing Paul Bettany (warming up to play Silas the albino assassin in The Da Vinci Code) to force Stanford to rob his own bank. To explain the plot any further is to assume we all don't know what's going to happen next. We do. And it does -- with formulaic efficiency.

Despite his advancing years, Ford can still credibly throw a punch and take a fall, but at this point, one wonders why these are the only muscles he chooses to flex. Does he need the money? Or a hit?

As his appeal to younger audiences wanes with every newly-sprouted grey hair, you can't help but feel he's wasting what chance he has left to challenge himself -- he almost starred in Traffic before dropping out -- or his audience. Age isn't the issue -- look at 70-something Clint Eastwood, arguably at the peak of his filmmaking powers, or Robert Redford, who proved his validity as an actor with An Unfinished Life and The Clearing. The issue is Ford's own seeming lack of ambition. Perhaps he's still stung from the rebuke suffered by Peter Weir's 1986 The Mosquito Coast, which features, ironically, the actor's strongest work and proof he's capable of more than foiling bad guys and rescuing distressed family members. Too bad he doesn't care enough to bother.

EXTRAS: Interviews with Ford and director Richard Loncraine.

FIREWALL

STARS: Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany and Virginia Madsen

DIRECTED BY: Richard Loncraine

IN BRIEF: Ford stars as Jack Stanford, a bank security specialist who is forced to rob his own bank when his family is kidnapped.

RATING: 2 out of 5