Bill Cox

"She has beautiful eyes... your daughter..."

- Bill Cox to Jack Stanfield

Bill Cox is the main antagonist in the 2006 thriller film Firewall.

He is portrayed by Paul Bettany.

Film
Cox is a scheming con man who holds the family of wealthy banker Jack Stanfield hostage, forcing Jack to give in to his demands for much of the film. His request is to force Jack to transfer $10,000 each from the ten thousand largest depositors at the bank he works at. Although he generally seems a nice man for the most part, he is a cold-hearted emotionless villain. He kills two of his own henchmen for not following orders, and nearly kills Andy by giving him a peanut cookie which he is allergic to in retaliation for the Stanfield's attempted failed escape. Furthermore, his ultimate goal is to commit the perfect crime (erasing all traces of evidence linked to him to the robbery) and make it look as though he never existed. Cox has Jack put in a virus disc with a planted message from Jack to his boss into his computer, which completely crashes the entire bank and frames Jack as the culprit. Once Jack is of no further use to him, he abducts his family intending to kill them and leaves one of his henchmen at the house behind to kill Jack and even goes so far as to framing Jack for the murder of his Co-worker, Harry, by forcing Jack's wife, Beth, to plant a message saying that she was leaving Jack, in which Jack would kill him over a jealous rage and had also planted a $95,000 gamble wager early on in the film which Jack would be use as his motive for robbing the bank. Instead, Jack kills the henchman with a glass blender and with the help of his secretary, locates Cox and his remaining henchmen through a chip in his dog's collar (who was taken along with his family).

Jack finds Cox in an old abandoned lakeside house where Cox was intending to erase all traces of his actions by killing Jack's family, despite Jack already having recovered the money and making a deal with Cox to meet at the bank where he recovered the money. Jack takes Cox by surprise, and they fight. Eventually, Jack grabs a pickaxe lying near the front of the house and swings it over his head, the blade burying itself deep within Cox's back, killing him.