Hostage
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.66 You Save: $6.33 (63%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Hostage
Movie Review: Hostage (DVD)
Summary: 4 Stars
Hostage represents Bruce Willis' latest attempt to produce a thriller with the kind of broad appeal exhibited by his most successful big-screen endeavor, Die Hard. The largest potential drawback to enjoying this movie is getting past some of the plot's implausibilities. For those who manage to achieve this, Hostage offers two entertaining hours. Or, to put it another way: accept Hostage for what it is, and a flawed-but-enjoyable ride awaits. I never once glanced at my watch.
Willis plays top LAPD hostage negotiator Jeff Talley, who removes himself from the big city after two victims (including a child) are killed on his watch. A year later, he is the chief of police in Bristo Camino, a small Ventura County hamlet. Nothing much happens there, which suits Jeff fine. His biggest worry is dealing with the unhappiness of his wife, Jane (Serena Scott Thomas), and daughter, Amanda (Rumer Willis, Bruce's real-life daughter with Demi Moore). They dislike Jeff's new lifestyle so much that they only live with him part-time, and "part-time" is even too often for Amanda. Then, when a suspicious vehicle is spotted outside the gated house of an accountant (Kevin Pollack), everything changes.
Inside the house, the accountant is lying motionless on his living room floor while his daughter, Jennifer (Michelle Horn), and son, Tommy (Jimmy Bennett), are being held hostage by three interlopers: Dennis (Jonathan Tucker), Mars (Ben Foster), and Kevin (Marshall Allman). An investigating police officer is shot and killed - an event that brings the entire Bristo Camino police force on the scene, plus a lot of help from the outside. After handling the initial contact with the hostage-takers, Jeff willingly turns over reigns of authority - until he discovers that there are darker goings-on than the crisis at hand.
The secondary plot-thread bogs down Hostage a little. While this aspect of the film amps up the tension, it does so at the expense of credibility and drama. Hostage tries to give us access to the interaction between the three inexperienced criminals (none of whom trust one another) and their victims, but it is shortchanged. Also, the final showdown is a little disappointing in its ordinariness. But there are some nice elements. For example, Tommy is played as an ingenious boy (not the stock dullard of movies like this) who provides a stream of useful information to Jeff via cell phone calls. And a dog gets whacked, which almost never happens in major motion pictures.
Although understandable, comparisons to Die Hard are misplaced. Hostage is a different kind of movie, and Jeff is nothing like John McClane. This character isn't a wisecracking fly in the ointment, he's a tortured individual looking for redemption. Jeff is an interesting enough individual that a drama could have been constructed around his life if the thriller elements hadn't intervened.
Director Florent Siri has burst upon the North American scene with a flourish. His sense of scope is impressive - he is fond of tracking and aerial shots. There's one scene in which the perspective changes from one car to another at an intersection, then switches to a third car as the second one passes it on the road. This is done seamlessly, giving us a sense that the lives of the characters are intersecting before the main action begins.
Hostage works in much the same way that Assault on Precinct 13 succeeds. Once the viewer has become immersed in the film's world, it no longer matters that real-world conventions are being flouted. Hostage has suspense and momentum, it takes some chances (the murder of a child during the prologue indicates that the film isn't squeamish), and, in Mars, it has a creepy villain (who appears to be designed, at least to a degree, using the mindset of the Columbine killers). The climax, while conclusive, offers little in the way of a true catharsis, but that's in keeping with the overall downbeat tone. Hostage works on its own terms, and, if you're willing to accept them, you'll enjoy spending these two hours with Bruce Willis.
Movie Review: Solid Action Thriller
Summary: 4 Stars
Bruce Willis is Jeff Talley, a former LA cop who specialized in hostage negotiation. As the film opens Talley refuses to set the sharpshooter take out a man who is holding his own family hostage. Talley tries to talk him out but the man kills his wife and young son and then kills himself. So immediately the viewer is manipulated into felling sorry for Talley. A year later, the stress has evidently got to him and he has moved his own family to the small California town oif Bristo Camino, to become the town Sheriff.
Trying to escape the big city problems, Talley soon finds heimself caught up in a a dual hostage situation, including his own wife and daughter. When three local hoods follow a SUV back to a lavish home in the hills, the trio break into the home to steal the car. The home is owned Walter Smith (Kevin Pollack) who seems to be a bit of a shady business man. Smith is home with his teenage daughter Jennifer, and young son Tommy.
Now Smith has the most elaborate security system complete with alarms, surveillance cameras, front gate...the whole nine yards and yet the three hoods, brothers Dennis and Kevin Kelly and their sinister partner Mars, just hop the fence and get into the house. I had a little problem with their so easily bypassying the security systems. little Tommy manages to trip a silent alarm and soon a local female cop resonds to the alarm and is shot by Mars. This of course brings out all the local cops and nearby county sheriffs to help.
Now comes the sub-plot. Seems Smith has a DVD that some very nasty men want to get their hands on. They kidnap Talley's wife and daughter and order him to take charge of the situation and get them the DVD or his family will be killed. Talley now has to contend with not only these organized pros, but the jumpy young hoodlums in the house.
Willis is his usual enjoyable self. He doesn't play quite the super-heroic type he did in the Die Hard films. The best performance, hands down goes to Ben Foster who played the menacing, violent, and self-destructive Mars, who had an almost child-like fascination with death. Jimmy Bennett as Tommy is yet another young kid who seems to have a touch of kevin McCallister in him as he continually manages to outsmart the bad guys by using a series of air ducts and secret ceiling doors to move about the house and even make phone calls out to the police. He's probably just a little too smart.
In the end, not enough is explained about the mysterious men who are after the DVD and what exactly is on it. I was waiting for a payoff that never really materialized. Still there was enough good stuff in the movie to make it worth a look.
Movie Review: Negotiations and their Consequences
Summary: 4 Stars
HOSTAGE, based on the best-selling novel by Robert Crais and adapted for the screen by Doug Richardson, has all the right ingredients for an action thriller: good plot, good character motivation, the requisite battle between good and evil, the transformation of a past bad deed into a current good turn, pyrotechniques, good sets, good actors. What more could you ask for a movie in this genre? Editing!
Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis looking far better sans hair than in the overly hirsute opening scenes) is a hostage negotiator in Los Angeles and after a traumatic event, transfers his family to a little Ventura County town. The job as Chief of Police of the quiet burg seems boring until the day of the movie when three punk teenagers (Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker, Marshall Allman) respond to their testosterone and antisocial tendencies and decide to steal an Escalade SUV from rich man Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak) and his children Jennifer (Michelle Horn) and Tommy (Jimmy Bennett) who live in a superstructure, highly guarded mansion that serves as a headquarters for criminal money manipulation (unbeknownst to the perpetrators). What begins as a 'simple robbery' escalates into a heinous situation that even Talley feels he cannot handle. The teen trio holds the family hostage, requesting a helicopter to aid their escape. Memories and flashbacks to Talley's Los Angeles fiasco drive him to superhero deeds in the messy situation and through a series of truly interesting twists this cat and mouse game of death comes to an interesting end.
Yes, there are subplots galore, deaths, fire, explosions, death-defying actions, and unexpected turns of events - all of which propel the breakneck speed of this film under the direction of Florent Emilio Siri. But clocking in at 113 minutes feels like 90 minutes could have accomplished the same results with more intensity. Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis and few can carry off these flicks as well. The supporting cast is fine with a special nod to Ben Foster who seems made to play the creepy teenaged protocriminal. One wonders why the producers elected to select brilliant composer Alexandre Desplat ('Birth', 'Girl with the Pearl Earring', 'The Upside of Anger', etc) to create a score that is 1) buried by all of the onscreen noise and 2) gratefully so! In all the film, with a lot of editing, could rank up there with the best of them in this genre. As it is, it is pretty solid 'entertainment.' Grady Harp, July 05
Movie Review: So much better than I expected!
Summary: 4 Stars
Chalk up another action thriller success for Bruce Willis. "Hostage" takes an age-old, stale concept...the hostage thriller...and tweaks it enough to make the most jaded viewer sit up and take notice 45 minutes into the film.
First of all, the director, Florent Siri, flaunts his creative vision at every turn, telling the story simply, yet inserting sly edits or artful compositions that you only notice when you get a chance to breathe.
The performances were all fine (except Willis' estranged wife...she struck me as a little amateurish) with Ben Foster doing a particularly menacing turn. In fact, it bordered on the "disturbing"...seeing evil right there on the surface. He did it well. Really well.
The screenplay has enough "randomness" to keep your attention, and honestly it has no more plot contrivances than any other movie of this genre. The good thing is that you are too involved to care, which shows you the movie is doing it's job.
Even the opening credits were kinda neat.
One little caveat, which will make sense to those who have seen the film. Maybe I missed it, but the identity of an important bad guy is never revealed. It feels like it that should be important, and there are lines that suggest that we are leading up to a big "a-HA!" moment. Oh well.
If you need a Friday night, put-the-popcorn-on and put-the-feet-up entertainment, you will likely be very happy you put "Hostage" in your DVD player.
Movie Review: Intense
Summary: 4 Stars
First I'll start with the obvious. This movie is action-packed and is filled with all the tension of a good thriller almost from the word go. There's plenty of guns and explosions and blood for the action movie fan. However, what I think makes this movie better than the average action movie is the performances. First of all, Ben Foster does a fabulous job as Mars Krupcheck. This guy gave me the creeps more than any horror movie killer has ever done. Finally, Bruce Willis. Now, I know he is known for his action/comedy work, but, in this movie, he gives maybe his most emotional performance to date. The hurt is written plainly on his face as he deals with becoming involved, once again, in a complicated and violent hostage negotiation (which he tried to leave behind after he lost a little boy a year before the action takes place). He has all the passion and anger of a typical action hero when need be, but there are also quiet moments when he needs to show his character's sadness and despair. In these moments, his performance really touched my heart. I won't give too many specifics, so as not to ruin any surprises along the way, but Willis really impressed me in this one. It is these performances that make this movie stand out for me. In short, this is a good movie for anyone who enjoys action films, but also for anyone who really loves to see a movie that is just plain good.