This was a half-way decent thriller if you overlook a major implausibility: Harrison Ford cast as a bank employee who turns action hero when his family are threatened. The years have not been kind to him, and the villain is half his age, as is his wife Beth, who could have been a tad less radiantly played by Virginia Madsen.

Ford plays Jack Stanfield who works at Union Pacific Bank in Seattle as head of security , not one of those heavies who guard the doors to the vaults but a computer whiz who creates and monitors programmes to safeguard against hackers trying to steal from top accounts. This makes him a target for the steel-eyed villain whose henchman gains access to his house disguised as a pizza delivery man and who holds his family hostage until Jack hacks into the files to steal $100,000,000.

Set in rain-soaked Seattle, there is a lot of technology and shiny exteriors as well as interiors, including not only the bank’s swish executive offices but Jack’s house by the ocean, designed by his architect wife who works from home. His teenage daughter and young son have suitably expensive electronic toys, and too bad the remote control toy tank interferes with the TV but tonight Dad will fix it. Just as well he didn’t as it turns out. Check the cute but much-neglected pooch who has a habit of running off, no doubt in search of a more pet-aware household.

Acting was never really Ford’s strongpoint, and here he seems considerably slowed down, more the kindly old curmudgeon than role-model father. He turns in a competent performance, as all he’s required to do most of the time is look anxiously cunning, whilst his wife and kids grit their teeth and wait for Dad to sort it.

The villains are weak, and the head one, played by Steely-eyed Paul Bethany, yet another British nasty in an American film, seems weak-minded, more willing to bump off his own men than the hostages when the latter transgress. He talks the talk, as they say, but backs down too often to be convincing. I wouldn’t have liked to see the kid with the allergy get his from the peanut biscuits but it seems a pretty roundabout way to impress. No wonder the gang are easily upset by Beth’s mild attempts to ruffle them. Their personalities are sketchily drawn and the one making sheep’s eyes at Beth seems more likely to bring her roses than rape her. Jack is helped at the end by a secretary he’s been forced to fire earlier in the film, a cameo from an actress called Mary Jane Rajskub who is bound for better things although she’ll be stuck with minor female wackos unless she changes that name.

To make up for the general miscasting and lack of characterisation there are scenes that have you believing – almost- that it’s possible to access bank account numbers using spare parts from everyday appliances like fax machines and iPods. The scene where Ford has to hope it works or his family gets it is given added oomph when his boss decides to give a visitor an impromptu tour of the vaults. A thrilling escape attempt in the middle which raises the tension a notch and the final pursuit and fisticuffs in a wooden house fully of splintery beams and dusty plastic gives Ford’s stunt double a thorough workout. It’s certificate 12, which is about right, although the old-style punch-up at the end is a bit prolonged.