Dir. Florent Emilio Siri, 2005, USA, 113 mins
Cast: Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollack
With the constant delays to the third Die Hard sequel, it's as if Bruce Willis couldn't wait any longer for a script that demonstrated his testosterone-fuelled chutzpah. Here he plays Jeff Talley, a well-seasoned LAPD hostage negotiator who has apparently never lost a human taken captive.
Talley, who initially has long hair, a beard and moustache that make him look like the bastardised son of Grizzly Adams, is therefore severely traumatised when a mother and her son die during a routine siege. A year later, it's no surprise that he has left his high-pressurised job, shaved off all his Chewbacca like bristles to become the Bruce Willis we all know and love, and moved to Ventura where he has reinvented himself as a police chief in the supposedly low-crime town of Bristo Camino.
Films like Arlington Road and the Halloween series have taught us that the suburban backwoods are not to be taken lightly. So when three teenage delinquents follow a family home intending to steal their car, Talley's problems really begin. In a story loosely based on Robert Crais' novel, the wannabe psychopaths end up in the house with crooked accountant Walter Smith (Pollack) and his family, taking them hostage.
In the days before Al-Qaeda and its various factions and supporters' heinous exploits in Iraq , this might have seemed like an adequate theme for a movie. However, the terrorists' brutal kidnapping and beheading of civilians has changed forever the idea of taking people against their will.
Consequently Florent Siri, the film's director, sensibly raises the ante: not only does Talley have to attempt to rescue the abductees, he must also try and save his own family who has been seized as leverage by the criminal entity Smith works for. The motivation that lies behind the organisation's evil threats is an encrypted DVD, held within the accountant's home, that is vital to their operation.
With such a menacing and arresting premise, it's only natural that Siri should try and characterise the residence where most of the action takes place. Ostensibly, it's meant to be an innocent hilltop dwelling with breathtaking vistas. However, Siri wants us to believe that this building is as mysterious and malevolent as the house in Psycho. Eerie long shots and flashy close-ups show a really imposing fortress with ratchet like shutters and enough hi-tech surveillance equipment to keep the sickest voyeur happy. Here though, he fails, as there's more menace and suspense on the set of a Channel Five home make-over programme.
Other aspects of the film are also unsatisfactory. Although there are some competent acting performances, Siri figures that the way to deal with a plot that has more holes than George Bushes' Iraqi invasion policy, is to gradually increase the pyrotechnics and sound effects until they belch out at over 100 decibels.
Talley thinks that dramatically increasing the firepower at his disposal will solve any problem. This is despite the fact that he is supposed to be a tortured soul who's stuck in an impossible dilemma with his family's lives at stake; it just doesn't make sense for him to take the risks he does. By the time he has finished his relief mission in Bristo Camino, you'd find less blood in an abattoir.
In essence, although Hostage does have some interesting opening credits and snappy editing, as a psychological thriller with such a striking premise it is a terrible let down. If this had been the fourth movie in the franchise that made Willis famous, then one could suggest that his character Couldn't die fast enough. Indeed, considering its clichés, one wonders if the money Siri was offered to direct it didn't make him a hostage to fortune.
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