Hostage
(2005)
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This well-made thriller harkens back to the gritty crime films of the 1970s. Bruce Willis plays Jeff Talley, a traumatized ex-LAPD hostage negotiator whose new career as small town sheriff doesn't turn out to be as restful as he had hoped; a hostage situation breaks out on 'low crime Tuesday' and he is thrown right back into the business he knows all too well. Some punk kids have shot a cop and are holed up in a local mansion inhabited by crooked accountant Walter Smith (Kevin Pollack), his two kids, and a lot of surveillance cameras. Walter's young son (Jimmy Bennett) escapes his bonds and reports to Talley from the air shafts via his sister's cell phone. The sister--a Goth teen played by Michelle Horn--draws the romantic attention of Mars (Ben Foster), the pot-addled sociopath in the gang, thus adding a unique twist to the damsel-in-distress factor. Meanwhile, amid the buzzing helicopters and mobilizing SWAT teams, another group of bad guys has kidnapped Talley's wife and daughter, in order to force him to retrieve a secret disc in Walter's study. Florent Siri's efficient direction keeps the action flowing in unexpected directions while allowing for plenty of interesting procedural details and sly bits of humour. The score is ominous and the performances are strong, with Foster memorably creepy and Willis excellent as the frightened hero. |
There's much to admire about this Bruce Willis outing, but precious little to really like about it. A slickly made if preposterously plotted thriller, it has Willis in dour mode as Jeff Talley, an LAPD hostage negotiator who quits his job to become a small-town police chief after an assignment ends in tragedy. Talley's past catches up with him, however, when three teenagers break into the hi-tech home of businessman Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak), taking Smith and his kids hostage. Smith's Mob connections result in Talley's estranged wife and daughter also being caught up in the drama. All this is watchable enough, but without the trademark twinkle and smug self-confidence that Willis brought to the Die Hard series, it becomes just another routine action thriller with delusions of grandeur. By and large, this is a film that misuses its star by taking him, and itself, far too seriously.