You don’t have to wait long for Firewall’s plot to kick in and begin building tension. It wastes little time or effort on introductory placidity or slowly developing menace. Director Richard Loncraine wants to get into it and he makes good use of his keep–it–moving skills. Firewall’s pacing and well–knit–together scenes maintain the agitation and suspense without much melodramatic pile–on or techno bang–ups.

Bubble, which plays next Wednesday and Thursday (Feb. 15-16) at the Emerging Cinema screen at the Market Arcade, received a substantial amount of pre-release publicity for reasons that have nothing to do with the movie’s content. It is the first of a planned series of six low-budget independent features that director Steven Soderbergh and HDNet Films plan to release simultaneously to theaters, cable and home video.