Hostage Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)March 7th, 2005
HOSTAGE
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Miramax Films
Grade: A-
Directed by: Florent Emilio Siri
Written by: Doug Richardson, novel by Robert Crais
Cast: Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak, Jonathan Tucker, Ben Foster, Jimmy Bennett, Michelle Horn
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 3/3/05
In his English-language debut, director Florent Siri knocks out a noir film that must rank among the genre's most suspenseful and exciting pics in recent years. "Hostage," adapted by Doug Richardson from Robert Crais's best-selling novel, is a study in extreme tension. A police officer, once the senior hostage negotiator in L.A. who now settles for a job as police chief in a California hamlet,is beset by conflict. Should he risk the lives of people trapped by a trio of young thugs in order to save his own family who are now hostages themselves, held by a band of hooded, professional and determined criminals to compel the negotiator to enter a building in a cop-surrounded household and leave with a copy of a most important DVD?
Siri wastes no time setting us up for what's to come. A bearded, literally laid-back hostage negotiator for the LAPD, Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis), gives a command that haplessly results in the death of two people held by a crazed gunman. Shortly thereafter, he settles into a job supervising a handful of cops in a sleepy California community, certain that what he calls "low- crime Monday" will be followed by low-crime Tuesday, ad infinitum. His bubble is burst when three young punks, seeking to make off with a Cadillac belonging to wealthy accountant Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak), are trapped within a multi-million dollar home (filmed in Topanga Falls, CA) with all the protections of a medieval castle save a moat. His job, saving the lives of the accountant and his two kids, eight-year-old Tommy Smith (Jimmy Bennett) and teen Jennifer (Michelle Horn), becomes more daunting when his own wife, Jane (Serena Scott Thomas) and daughter Amanda (Rumer Willis), are taken hostage themselves by a menacing band of professionals who will free their captives only if Jeff Talley can get them what they want.
It's refreshing to see Bruce Willis doing what he does best. Giving him due credit for his role in the TV series "Moonlighting" and in the failed "Bonfire of the Vanities," Willis of "Pulp Fiction" and "Die Hard" reports for duty, to audience satisfaction. This is the Bruce of "The Siege," Edward Zwick's prescient tale of a New York in which terrorists have set off bombs throughout the city leading to the imposition of martial law, with Willis, acting like a tyrant, clashing with an FBI man and a CIA agent. Major acting kudos go, however, to young Ben Foster as the long- haired psycho Mars Krupcheck, who gets off on watching people slowly die and who, relaxed during the most stressful situation of his life, has only a faint trace of humanity in his tortured soul.
If you believe what the cinema has to tell us, that the best way to redeem yourself from the demons that bedevil you is to thrust yourself into a similar situation, then "Hostage" will confirm your faith. Talley, fighting the ghosts of the two prisoners who went belly-up a decade back, is unwillingly placed into a similar situation. Should he fail, not only will his family and that of a wealthy accountant be history, but his own wife and kid will become statistics themselves. "Hostage" tests a failed cop as he struggles to thrust off his agony.
Rated R. 113 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
[email protected]
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
