CORPORATE LINE: Devastated by a hostage situation which resulted in the deaths of a young mother and her child, LAPD negotiator Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis) exits Los Angeles for a low-profile job as chief of police in the low-crime town of Bristo Camino in Ventura County.
When three delinquent teenagers follow a family home intending to steal their car, they inadvertently pick the wrong house on the wrong day. The trio find themselves trapped in a multi-million dollar compound on the outskirts of town owned by an accountant. Panicked, the teenagers take the family hostage, placing Talley in exactly the kind of situation he never wanted to face again. Soon after, Talley readily hands authority of the hostage situation over to the Ventura County Sheriffs Department and leaves the scene. After it becomes clear that the Sheriff Department cannot handle the crisis, Talley is forced to resume the command he had abandoned where the stakes quickly evolve into a hostage situation far more volatile and terrifying than anything he could ever imagine.
THE FILM: Bruce Willis is back in action. There is only one way for Willis to come out looking good and that is to hit the nail directly on the head. Hostage gets some things right and some completely wrong.
Hostage is the umpteen Hollywood cop movies where a police officer is burned out and has all sorts of personal problems. For once it would be nice just to have a regular guy who has a great life and is in it to solve the crime.
Instead Hostage veers right into the usual scripted fray of taking the man’s family and making demands where they have to choose their morals over their family. Quite a conundrum and yet we’ve really seen it before haven’t we?
FRANKLY: Hostage doesn’t find Bruce Willis back in the saddle again. Or does it? Certainly it seems as if he is playing the same guy we’ve seen before and yet this movie is lacking most of the key ingredients that made most of those movies, Die Hard, memorable. You won’t walk away from Hostage remembering anything more than explosions always look cool on screen and that Willis looks a little older than you last remembered.
+ Charlie Craine
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.