Hostage
2005′s Hostage is good popcorn entertainment that tries to offer a lot of layers, but doesn’t really succeed in providing any substance for those layers. A lot of the character development is based around assumptions and guess-work, making for the sudden jarring changes in characters to be taken with a significant grain of salt. Still, Hostage provides thrills and action with a good tone and dark edge.
Bruce Willis stars as former hostage negotiator Jeff Talley. After a failed negotiation, Talley’s life changes and he becomes a police chief in a small town. His family life is crumbling, with his marriage consistently on the verge of divorce. Talley heads to work every day, where his biggest challenges appear to be traffic stops and the police dress code. One fateful day, however, all of that changes as some punk kids go too far in trying to one-up each other.
Three lower class kids try to steal a truck, but end up getting more than they bargained for when they enter the house of a less-than-legal accountant (Kevin Pollack). As things go from bad to worse, Talley finds himself in difficult situation after difficult situation and is fighting for the lives of his own family along with those in the hostage situation. The situation spirals out of control and it is up to Talley to fight off his demons and save the day. He ends up putting people in various compromising positions because of his desire to save his own family, which helps develop various ethical quandaries throughout the film.
Still, the character development attempted by director Florent Emilio Siri in his first English language film (he was the director behind the Splinter Cell video game) lacks quite a bit of substance. The film becomes a patchwork of ideas, many of which seem a bit too complex for the end result. Instead of forming taut thrills, Siri eventually falls into the trappings of many Hollywood films and the guns start blazing. Hostage, at points, even takes on a horror film tone as one of the kids staggers through the house in flames, stalking his victims. It gets a little bit silly, losing some of its film noir intentions.
Bruce Willis is good as Talley, bringing a broad range of emotions to Hostage. He looks haggard but still in control, making him the ideal candidate for his job. Willis’ desperation shows through in many scenes, but Talley’s ethics are still very much in question for many portions of the film. Willis also brings that to light effectively, leaving the audience to make up their own mind and ask themselves what they would do in the situation.
The film is a little too noisy at points, with the ever-present soundtrack jarring some of the melodrama a little too far. The action sequences start out being very well-directed and intense, but they quickly degrade into scenes involving various characters stalking others through fire and writing on mirrors with amazing precision in their own blood. Some of the sequences get downright laughable.
All in all, Hostage remains as a decent popcorn flick. It doesn’t demand much of its audience, even though it claims to, and it presents thrills and action in spades. Still, it lacks many important elements that it seems the film started with but lost track of along the way. It’s too bad, too, because Hostage was shaping up to be great pulp cinema. Instead, it downgraded itself into cheesy melodramatic action.
Trailer:
