Today’s quick review: Hostage. Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis), a former LAPD hostage negotiator turned small-town police chief, gets dragged into a high-stakes standoff when a trio of teen delinquents break into the home of Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak), a shady accountant, and take his family hostage. To ensure that Talley resolves the situation to their satisfaction, Smith’s criminal associates kidnap and threaten to kill Talley’s family.
Hostage is a crime thriller that drops a world-weary hostage negotiator into the middle of a complex standoff. With the teen criminals desperate for a way out, Smith’s associates willing to kill to protect their interests, and his own past failures haunting him, Jeff Talley must gamble everything to keep the hostages and his family alive. Hostage features a decent premise and a few good twists, but its dark tone and disconnected plot hold it back.
Tonally, Hostage is disturbing and bleak. The events of the movie are not that much darker than the typical crime drama, but Hostage goes out of its way to establish an oppressive atmosphere. The hostage negotiations in the film are almost always no-win situations, and Talley’s rare victories are offset by the steep prices he pays for them. The overly dark tone ends up overpowering everything else, including the viewer’s sympathy for the characters.
From a story perspective, Hostage is a mixed bag. The premise has potential, since it forces a hostage negotiator to confront his past failings. The various factions involved in the standoff also play off each other well, leading to a couple of good plot twists. But each plot thread pulls the story in a different direction, with only an overworked Jeff Talley to tie it all together. The result is an unfocused story with less impact than it should have.
Watch Hostage if you’re a fan of dark, tense crime movies. The film has enough going on to be a moderately interesting watch, and it avoids any glaring mistakes in its execution. But between its bleak tone, its jumbled plot threads, and its lack of distinctive traits, most viewers would be better off with a better-known crime movie instead. For a similarly bleak revenge movie with similar flaws, check out Rage.
6.6 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.0 for decent craftsmanship hurt by a cluttered plot and an excess of drama.