Hostage Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)March 16th, 2005
HOSTAGE
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Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis) thinks he's left his nightmarish career as a hostage negotiator behind him to become police chief in a high income, low crime California town, but when three teenage car jackers coveting an Escalade break into a gated estate, things quickly spiral out of control. Their victim, Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak, "The Whole Ten Yards"), is a money-launderer for the mob and the mob, desperate to regain possession of a highly incriminating disk, blackmails Talley into retrieving it by taking his wife and daughter "Hostage."
In "Die Hard," the movie that made Willis an action hero (while also giving a seriously needed overhaul to the genre), Bruce was a tough guy with 'tude and swaggering cheek whose evident destructibility made us care and kept tension in the film. In this grim piece of overstuffed pulp, Willis is in constant anguish with no opportunity for show offy head games and faces such an overwhelming amount of challenges to be overcome we're too worn out for knuckle biting. Still, director Florent Emilio Siri ("The Nest") is so caught up in his florid stylings that "Hostage" is somewhat enjoyable on a cheesy level.
After a predictable, if effective, prologue that fills us in on Talley's history, we're brought to the present where Jeff is working on his marriage to Jane (Serena Scott Thomas, "The World Is Not Enough") and the resentment of teenage daughter Amanda (Bruce's daughter Rumer Willis) for transplanting them from L.A. Meanwhile, brothers Dennis (Jonathan Tucker, "The Deep End," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") and Kevin Kelly (Marshall Allman, "Little Black Book") along with creepy chum Mars (Boston native Ben Foster, "Northfork," "The Punisher") are targeting the upscale SUV and the 'rich bitch' acquaintance (Michelle Horn as Jennifer) whose Daddy owns it. They're seen inside the house by Jennifer's little brother Tommy (Jimmy Bennett, voice of Roo in "Pooh's Heffalump Movie"), one of those adventurous, capable preteens, who wisely sets off their security alarm, but the officer who comes to investigate is shot by Mars, a budding psychopath eager to bloom. When Talley attempts to extricate himself from the hostage situation which erupts by handing over the reins to state law enforcement, he's forced to weasel his way back in as an undercover agent for the mob or lose his own family.
Not content with this double barrelled setup, screenwriter Doug Richardson ("Welcome to Mooseport," "Die Hard 4"), adapting a novel by Robert Crais, throws in territorial power disputes both within the car jacking gang and among government employees (Talley even leans on an old EMT buddy to administer a potentially life-threatening injection to Smith), a media circus, child endangerment, animal executions, the threat of rape, a faux FBI SWAT team, shootouts and firestorms. The information that the mob is intent upon grabbing is disguised as a "Heaven Can Wait" dvd for no apparent reason and even when Tommy, who Talley has been forced to jeopardize as a gofer, finds the 1978 version first (his dad used the 1943 title), he seems to know enough to grab the older movie as well, a useless waste of maguffin on multiple levels.
Siri, who suggests either a megalomaniac or a guy really having one over on us, adds all kinds of deranged tweaks to the action, beginning with his technique of bleeding color up and down for scene transitions. His most hilariously out there moment features Jennifer, her trashy gear swaddled in a blanket Virgin Mary style, dolefully watching Mars bearing down brandishing Molotov cocktails like an antiChrist.
Siri's taken a series of dire predicaments and exploited them for trash entertainment. "Hostage" would have been a perfect drive-in flick.
C
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