Hostage
reviewed by Brian "The Naked Gun" Felts

Bruce Willis, the action hero, strikes again in another decent action movie which takes itself way to seriously in almost all aspects. "Hostage" provides action, suspense, drama, and comedy, which should pay for the admission ticket, but won't make anyone forget the great action movies of our day i.e. "Die Hard," "Terminator 2" and "The Hunt for Red October," all from the 1980's.

"Hostage" is about a hostage situation in a hostage situation. Three young guys break into a house to steal a car, but the house belongs to an accountant for some mob organization. The kids quickly get in over their heads, and one of them shoots a cop who responds to a silent alarm. Police Captain Jeff Talley, played by Bruce Willis (The Whole Ten Yards), comes to the house, but he quickly hands over responsibility to the county sheriff. However, the mob isn't happy, and they capture Talley's wife and daughter, tell him to retrieve important information from the house or they will die.

The movie doesn't sound complicated, and maybe I am oversimplifying it, but that is basically it. However, it does allow Willis to do what he does best, and may I say, also show a more human side which I haven't seen him do before in any movie.

The rest of the cast is okay, and I am looking forward to watching Michelle Horn (Return to Secret Garden), who played the accountant's daughter Jennifer, grow up. She is going to be a hottie. Also of note is Rumer Willis, Willis' real life daughter, who also plays his daughter in the movie. She doesn't do a bad job. She must have learned her on-screen b**chiness from her mother Demi Moore.

The movie is fun, enjoyable and, like I said, worth watching. However, I don't know if it will ever make my movie collection.

Brian - the Naked Gun

This picture probably won't find its way into my DVD library either. Although, I did enjoy watching the goals and conflicts set for Willis' character.

Overall, as action movies go, this one could have been so much worse. There were no stupid one liners spouted by Willis. There was no bumbling cop used as the picture's comic relief. Just a situation, and an illconfident main character looking to keep his family from harm.

"Hostage" was conventional for a few reasons, but original for others. For example, I do not recall seeing a small boy, covered in blood, die from a gun shot wound in Willis' arms. The moment was fairly disturbing to watch, as it must have been for Willis' character. I appreciate director Florent Emilio Siri's (Splinter Cell® video game franchise) boldness in showing the child's death up close and personal. Most Hollywood made pictures will lay off the actual "showing" of violence against children.

However, screenwriter Doug Richardson (Die Hard 2, Bad Boys), who adapted the script from a novel by Robert Crais, did a poor job of writing a conceiveable "bad guy" character in Mars Krupcheck, the young man who shot and killed the responding cop. Mars is portrayed as a complete psycho with some sort of instant feelings for the accountant's daughter. I felt his feelings were coming from somewhere, but we the viewer never get enough backstory on his character to know where exactly he was coming from. Actor Ben Foster (The Punisher) as Mars and the director did well to lead us to believe there was more going on with that character than what was written.

My other problem with the picture was, we never got a grasp on what organization was using Willis' character to get the vital accounting information. We know they have money, and the ability to pose as an FBI task force. However, nothing about the accountant's clients were made concrete.

Overall, I enjoyed the picture, but it needed a few more explained aspects in its story for me to consider it a masterpiece of the action genre.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?