Jeff Talley is a hostage negotiator for the LA SWAT team, he’s currently dealing with a hostage situation featuring a Mother and her young son Sean, Jeff’s job is to get the perpetrator to surrender and he’s so confident in his abilities that at one point he’s laying on the floor casually smoking a cigarette. However before Jeff can calm the situation down things start to get out of hand, the gun man shoots himself, the Mother and Sean. Jeff rushes in to find Sean dying, he dies in Jeff’s arms.
A year later Jeff has given up being a hostage negotiator because of the fatal events of 12 months ago, he now works as the chief of police, he is having marriage problems and has a unruly daughter Amanda (Rumer Willis). When a rich family consisting of Dad Walter (Kevin Pollack), teenage daughter Jennifer and young son Tommy are followed to their state of the art house, the gang of three delinquents are planning on stealing their posh car, instead Mars (Ben Foster) has other ideas. When the silent alarm is triggered the police are called to check out the house, the police officer who attends is shot by Mars. It’s clear that this isn’t just a simply hijacking job.
The plot then thickens when Jeff becomes head of the hostage situation, he is captured by men in balaclavas who tell him that they have captured his family and if he wishes to see them alive again then he
needs to get the men a DVD hidden in Walter’s office. However with a hostage situation and the rules of no one goes in and no one goes out it’s going to be a lot harder than expected for Jeff to rescue his family and save the hostages too…
I heard somewhere that this film was first meant to be the next Die Hard film and I honestly think it should have been as it’s far superior to Die Hard 4.0 which was released a couple of years ago. Bruce Willis is on top form in this film however I can’t help but think that maybe if he was playing his trademark character of John McClane this movie could have been lots more enjoyable than it was.
There’s a good story here and the twist is good, the action begins right at the start which grabs your attention and keeps you glued to your seat. This really sets the pace well for the rest of the film, this is a fast paced film which was exactly what I was hoping for. I first saw this a couple of years ago on Sky Movies and have since purchased it on DVD because I enjoyed it so much.
The film manages to keep you gripped from start to finish and it remains tense and taut throughout, there’s a good twist half way through the film that you will not see coming. What I didn’t like about the plot was all the unrealistic plot holes which make the film a bit contrived and take away the realism that a story like this could have. The house that the group of petty young criminals take hostage is a state of the art house with the latest security equipment aimed at keeping people with much better skills than them out. Therefore it baffled me that even with such seemingly secure security system a gang of their stature still managed to gain access to the house with ease.
Another thing that I didn’t like about the plot was how things weren’t completely explained even by the end of the film we were still none the wiser about certain things that the audience should have been made fully aware of by the end of the film. The DVD for example, near the beginning of the film we witness Walter having an important phone call which leads him to place a DVD in a case and ask when they want it dropped off. This makes the audience curious about what’s on the DVD and makes you believe that maybe Walter isn’t quite the devoted family man he first seemed to be. When the DVD does come into play we never actually find out what’s on it, it’s obvious that it’s important but apparently it’s not important enough to inform the audience of the DVD’s significance. Near the end of the film I was expecting Bruce Willis’s character to come through in the end and tie up all the loose ends of the movie, including what was on the DVD, unfortunately this never happens which left me feeling quite disappointed and cheated because every subplot surrounding the mysterious DVD is first-class.
Bruce Willis, who’s widely known as one of the biggest action stars in Hollywood can always be relied upon to make a good movie, even into his 50’s Bruce Willis still manages to churn out entertaining, eye-catching and tense action packed films which is why he’s so loved and well respected in the film industry. His character that brought him to prominence, John McClane became so popular because he was just an average man which every Joe Bloggs on the street could relate to. He also had a personality which is what made him so likeable. I think he loses a bit of his personality in this film, of course in Hostage he’s playing a different character but I can’t help thinking that the character of Jeff Talley is nothing but a cheap alternative to John McClane. Jeff Talley doesn’t really have much of a personality which would enable him to be liked by the audience. The audience does get behind him to a certain extent when the welfare of his family is brought into question and you can definitely feel his anguish but unfortunately he didn’t seem to have that certain flare that he’s had in previous movies.
The delinquents that take the family hostage aren’t played very well, Ben Foster who plays the real bad guy stands out purely for being a delusional psychopath however I found him really uncomfortable to watch, especially the scenes in which he shared with Walter’s daughter Jennifer, she’s clearly aged around 15 so to see him touching her and making sleazy advances becomes increasingly uncomfortable viewing. The other two perpetrators are incredibly irritating and don’t really have a place in this movie at all, they show no signs of a personality and I think if they all worked together as an ensemble this could have been a much better movie.
Despite it’s flaws I still think this is a very good film, not one to surpass Die Hard by any means but still a tense, action packed and thoroughly enjoyable film from start to finish. This really stands out for me as a brilliant claustrophobic thriller that I’ve enjoyed watching several times now. I highly recommend it.
The DVD is currently available from play.com for only £3.99, one more reason you should give this a watch.
The DVD special features include: Audio commentary from director Florent Emilio Siri Deleted and extended scenes Behind the scenes footage
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Thriller - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Timothy West, Neil Morrissey, Tara Fitzgerald, Annette Crosbie, Pauline Quirke, Rob Brydon, Denise Van Outen, John Thomson, Kevin Whately, David Suchet
You get two hostage crises for the price of one inHostage, an overwrought but otherwise ... more
involving thriller grounded by Bruce Willis's solid lead performance. Making a dramatic pit-stop on his way toDie Hard 4, Willis plays a traumatized former Los Ange...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
You get two hostage crises for the price of one inHostage, an overwrought but otherwise ... more
involving thriller grounded by Bruce Willis's solid lead performance. Making a dramatic pit-stop on his way toDie Hard 4, Willis plays a traumatized former Los Ange...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Would you sacrifice another family to save your own? Bruce Willis stars as a small-town ... more
cop Jeff Talley; chief of Police in the sleepy town of Bristo Camino. Leaving behind the trauma of his career as a big city hostage negotiator Talley finds himse...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Advantages: Fantastic one liners, the arguments between the family members and Denis Leary/Kevin Spacey! Hilarious!! Disadvantages: Slow start and it could've been a longer film...ah well!!
fenerg 03.05.2001 (01.12.2004)
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