Hostage DVD Review:

Hostage: Black and White and Shades Between

A riddle that film often tries to answer is how much and what kind of life there is for aging action stars. Some like Mel Gibson gradually wean themselves off the genre, while others like Steven Seagal fanatically stand their ground, despite the increasingly comical bent of their work. In the film “Hostage” Bruce Willis tries to have it both ways, playing a detached observer caught up in the heat of action.

This tale of a police hostage negotiator who finds his own family’s life on the line marks the Hollywood debut of French director Florent Siri, recruited by Willis after seeing his taut thriller “The Nest.” It has much in common with “Mercury Rising,” another Willis film that follows his law enforcement character’s journey from professional failure to self-doubt to social withdrawal to eventual redemption. “Hostage” is entertaining and well crafted, but adds up to far less than it could. Siri hedges his bets by switching back and forth between action, human drama, and film noir suspense, without really committing to any of them. Consequently the thrills are a little weak, the character development a bit shallow, and the twists none too shocking. The biggest liability is the generally unimposing nature of the villains, which keeps the tension several notches below where it should be. It’s still a fun ride, with a refreshing degree of humanism and realism.

Determined not to let anyone die, L.A. hostage negotiator Jeff Talley (Willis) tries to talk down an enraged husband holed up with his wife and child. Unfortunately he fails to save the hostages, and the shattered Talley subsequently takes a job as police chief in the sleepy town of Bristo Camino. His wife and teenage daughter drive out to visit on weekends, but the former is frustrated Talley has become a closed book and the latter downright furious about the family’s uncertain future. Across town teen hoodlums Dennis (Jonathan Tucker), younger brother Kevin (Marshall Allman), and enigmatic buddy Mars (Ben Foster) tail the fancy car of Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak) and his family, coveting it and teenage daughter Jennifer (Michelle Horn) inside. At his fabulous mansion up in the hills, Walter is just concluding some sort of shady business deal over the Internet when the teens, armed with handguns, break into the house and demand the car keys. Luckily young son Tommy (Jimmy Bennett) is able to trip the silent alarm and Talley’s officer Flores responds, but when trigger-happy Mars shoots her dead the stakes quickly rise. After knocking Walter unconscious, the teens are thrilled to discover the house not only has a state of the art security system, but also a safe chock full of cash.

As night falls Talley’s men surround the house, and he finds himself reluctantly in his old position, trying to talk down Dennis. Elsewhere mysterious menacing figures become perturbed that they can’t reach their accountant Walter, who has some data they need urgently. The sheriff’s department having arrived, Talley defers to their negotiator and heads home. His night is far from over though, as that mysterious group is insistent on retrieving the data and makes it plain to Talley that his family will suffer grave consequences if he doesn’t use his expertise to help them get it.

Siri has said that he wanted to make the hoodlums representative of the same disenfranchised and misguided youth that committed the Columbine killings, rather than hardened criminals. It seems he wished to pontificate a little on the perils of easy gun access. It’s a worthy agenda, but a spotty execution. Though an outsider, Siri makes the classic Hollywood mistake of creating an environment so cinematically grand that the audience cannot possibly relate to it. The Smith’s preposterously grandiose mansion is so otherworldly that from the general public’s perspective they may as well have been living on the Death Star. Not the best way to really bring home the horrors of gun violence. The obvious allusions to class warfare between the teens and the Smiths are very relevant today, although Max’s eventual transformation into a pyromaniac Jason Voorhees is a rather fantastic result.

The film rests on Willis’s sturdy shoulders and he carries it ably, betraying a sense of vulnerability unknown to “Die Hard”’s John McClane. I can’t recall the last time I saw an action hero allowed to express genuine fear. The down to earth character not only has little opportunity for Yippie-kai-yay showboating, but is actually offscreen for large stretches of the film while we commune with the residents of the house. The film stumbles a bit in his absence, since with the ever reliable Pollak unconscious we’re left with the somewhat indistinctive youths. Foster’s menacing yet needy Max helps to fill this void, creating some real tension in moments alone with Jennifer. It’s too bad he descends into caricature at the end. Contrary to the emotional realism of Willis’ character, Bennett’s unflappable Tommy is stuck firmly in “Home Alone” mode. Also appearing, in the thankless role of obnoxious teenage daughter, is Willis’s real life offspring Rumer. Suddenly the hair loss becomes much less mysterious.

“Hostage” is a very stylish film, employing a number of film noir techniques such as dim backlighting of the characters. The stark black and white CGI opening credits provide a breathtaking overview of what will turn out to be the opening standoff. Although the marketing pushed the film as a vehicle for Willis the action star, there aren’t too many thrills to be had until the climax, and even then they are fairly pedestrian. Is Willis getting too old for this, uh, stuff? Still, the film entertains by relentlessly cribbing from other films. Willis’s opening botched rescue mission recalls a similar scene in “Mercury Rising,” the harrowing flight from the monstrous Max through a ventilation shaft recalls “Aliens,” and a bizarre “Passion of the Christ” moment occurs when the longhaired Max seeks redemption in the eyes of the hooded Jennifer as he painfully atones for her father’s sins. So obvious that it must be outright parody is Tommy’s “Die Hard” impression. Just like Willis in that film, he cuts himself on glass, eludes the bad guys via the ventilation system, and becomes the police’s inside contact. We don’t actually get to see him hang anybody, but here’s hoping it’s on the director’s cut.

Hostage gets an average selection of extras, so such a further edition is not inconceivable. Siri’s commentary provides an interesting opportunity to hear the Hollywood process described by an outsider, and delivers a decent mix of technical and plot detail. The eight deleted and extended scenes with Siri’s commentary are very brief and inconsequential, apart from one that introduces Flores early on and would have increased the emotional investment in her death scene. Finally the “Behind the Scenes” piece is very disappointing, a bland fluff piece with no hard info apart from a brief discussion of the techniques used by real hostage negotiators.

Obvious pretensions aside, Hostage winds up being neither “Die Hard” nor Hitchcock, but is still well worth watching for thriller and Willis fans. I look forward to seeing what Siri can do with a really great script, perhaps one of the “Bourne” sequels. A European director for a Eurocentric franchise sounds about right. And the permissive stance on nudity doesn’t hurt either. Unless that means more gratuitous shots of Willis in his underwear.



Chris Wood