Hostage, towards the end, plays a little like a Die Hard movie, which isn’t surprising, since Doug Richardson did write it (he also wrote Die Hard 2) and Willis, who’s good in Hostage, is usually best in… well, Die Hard movies, actually. Like those films, Hostage lets him emote and he does a good job with it. When he’s doing the sly, wink-wink Bruce Willis, which he only does two or three times in Hostage, he’s irritating. But this film does contain one of his better recent performances.
I saw the film for director Siri and from that aspect, it was a little disappointing. There are some great shots, but Hostage‘s story constraints (hostage situation in a mountain house) don’t really allow for much. The scenes when the story’s away from the hostage situation, especially at the beginning, are much better. The house scenes are all nice and fine, but they aren’t interesting, much less dynamic.
The film attempts to complicate a hostage situation with a couple quirks–first, Willis is a burnt-out hostage negotiator turned small town police chief and second, the hostage is a mob accountant so the mob takes Willis’s family hostage. Obviously, the latter is going to affect the story a great deal, but Willis’s traumatic experience, shown in the opening, has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film, or even his character. He could have just given up on L.A. because the small town has good fishing and it wouldn’t have made a difference. The problem with the second situation–which makes it feel like that Die Hard sequel–is Serena Scott Thomas, who plays Willis’s wife. She’s so inept, it’s impossible to feel any empathy for her. The rest of the cast is fine. Ben Foster’s great as a psychopath, even if the role is a little undercooked, writing-wise. Of all the people in the film, he’s the one who gets the most to do and he takes advantage of that situation.
As far as mediocre, harmless Bruce Willis thrillers (that lost 1990s genre) go–Hostage is a fine return to form. Its greatest fault is when, scene-to-scene, there’s some potential and then the film doesn’t follow through. Usually, all that potential’s from Siri, but there are some really nice character relationships in the thing, and the finite story-time–maybe ten hours–don’t let them resolve. But, still, it’s harmless, even if the opening credits are an unbelievably stylized eyesore.
★½
CREDITS
Directed by Florent Emilio Siri; written by Doug Richardson, based on the novel by Robert Crais; director of photography, Giovanni Fiore Coltellacci; edited by Olivier Gajan and Richard J.P. Byard; music by Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Larry Fulton; produced by Bruce Willis, Arnold Rifkin, Mark Gordon and Bob Yari; released by Miramax Films.
Starring Bruce Willis (Jeff Talley), Kevin Pollak (Walter Smith), Ben Foster (Mars Krupcheck), Michelle Horn (Jennifer Smith), Jimmy Bennett (Tommy Smith), Jonathan Tucker (Dennis Kelly), Marshall Allman (Kevin Kelly), Serena Scott Thomas (Jane Talley), Kim Coates (The Watchman) and Rumer Willis (Amanda Talley).
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