Hostage was a good action flick. It's not great, but it was certainly good. There's many things I liked about Hostage. First of all, it's suspensful. It's also quite action-packed, though the trailer doesn't make it seem that way. Lots of gun shootings, blood flying, and dead cops. The acting is better than I could have expected. I was impressed with Bruce Willis. There's also a few things I did not like about Hostage. The initiating incident in the movie was kind of stupid. Three random teenagers decide to steal the car of a rich girl who gave them the finger. There's also a lot of things done by one of the people holding the kids hostage, and a lot wasn't explained. The character was basically a freak and relatively quiet during the entire movie. Overall, it's a good action movie. I'd recommend it. I didn't like it as much as Assault on Precinct 13, but it's worthy of a viewing from action fans.

B-

Is 'Bruce' back?

With a blend of a surprisingly multi dimensional main character, steady but extremely tense suspense, and some simply fantastic cinematography, Hostage manages to be a great movie on multiple levels without buckling under its own weight. As Jim Talley, Bruce Willis pulls off his best performance since The Sixth Sense. As a guilt stricken police officer trying to find peace with himself in all the wrong ways, he's an incredibly sympathetic character, and the final scene with him is incredibly emotional one thanks to this. Though no one in the supporting cast compares to Willis in this, no one is weak either. Pollak manages to be at times sympathetic, and one has conflicting feelings whether they should like him or not. Though Ben Foster was slightly underdeveloped, he manages to still be fittingly creepy. Oh, and I don't know who played him, but that little kid should have won some sort of trophy for most resourceful and non annoying little kid in any action movie in the last decade. As far as the film itself goes, it's suprisingly brutal and violent, but only in one scene is it over-the-top. Florent Siri manages to make this an incredibly slick looking movie. From the awesome opening credits to the editing and amazing cinematography (which in my opinion is Oscar worthy), the entire film is extremely slick and streamlined, and it shows. A good mix of amazing action and emotional (but not sappy) character redemptions are rare, but this is one of those types of movies. A-

Indeed.

And MovieDude, I agree. The cinematography was very good.

Ok to barely good movie but very predictable parts / ending.

Also, I didn't really like Bruce's family or the other hostage family so I really didn't care about them. And the 2 sets of bad guys weren't that impressive with some bad creepiness from the one bad guy to the teenage girl. Plus you don't get to see / know the FBI guys. Lots of unimpressive stuff.

Only goes to show how good Die Hard was. Yip-pee, Ka-aaa, Mother-Fucker. ( I think this is the line from the movie. )

Well, i've picked Hitch over Hostage this week to see at the cinema, was that a wise move? :???:

IMO Hostage is a lot better than Hitch...but Hitch is still pretty good.

In my opinion, yes.

It's a good action movie, but not great. I loved Hitch, but thought Hostage was good. Some may say otherwise. As long as you catch Hostage eventually, you're okay. :wink:

Hostage is a deeply flawed, though stylish, action film. It's also unrelentlessly grisly and violent. I was getting sick of all the graphic violence this movie had to offer (including the shooting deaths of both a child and a dog) by the time the 110 minutes ended. Perhaps the best thing about it is the visual flair brought by director Florent Niri. Despite not being a very good movie, Hostage looks great. Willis does his typical "tortured soul" bit here, presenting a character that comes across as a low-rent John McClane without the witty one-liners. Jonathan Tucker is over-the-top as one of the main thugs, but Ben Foster is quite creepy. I would've liked to have seen his character explored a bit more, because the filmmakers had something good there and didn't present it well enough. It was also nice to see the little boy portrayed by Jimmy Bennett have some brains and not just stand there whimpering like many of the children in these movies tend to do. Overall, a mediocre effort. C+

BJs Grade:

B+

great action film but not one I would watch again

Hostage caught me completely by surprise. I saw this film simply to pass some time and came out of it very impressed. This is a very well done film with a good story and some great action and a well written script. There are some twists in the film and there are certain things that you just don't see coming. Bruce willis is still fun to watch after all these years.

8/10

This is one finely crafted and well oiled machine of a thriller movie!

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the main character - Bruce Willis' burnt-out ace hostage negotiator, Jeff Talley. With this key central character, the screenwriter turned what would otherwise have been a pedestrian hostage drama into a tightly wound clockwork plot powered by the viewer's empathy for Talley's tightrope plight. The overlapping bad guy characters and the two families provided an emotional background upon which to contrast Talley's calm improvisation and implementation of his logical and psycho-logical plan(s). The level of ultra-violence portrayed, to me, sells the authenticity of the scenario - {SPOILER... this is not a happy story}.

One of the best movies I've seen so far this year.

5 out of 5.

Hostage was a good action movie, Bruce plays his character very well. i like him in this movie. but the weakness of this movie is some elements wasn't being well-explained. so it leaves me some question. but still an enjoyable action-thriller movie. i can grade it B

Never expected it to be that good. It was great from beginning to end. Loved it!!

A

Decent flick. Bruce Willis' movies are getting better, but Sin City hats off is the better Bruce Willis movie of the year. B-

What?

Hats off is an expression usually reserved for compliments.

Fine then. Sin City is the better Bruce Willis movie of the year. Happy?

I'd be happier if you didn't have such a ginormous signature :razz:

LOL

OOooOoH!!! what a great movie, it was way better than i expected!

The gun shooting was awesome, some blood that is always good!, very thrilling...
that Mars guy was kinda creepy looking!

A-

ooh! the Opening credits were cool!

A-


I was instantly blown away by this one. I heard some good things about it and some bad ones, but I definitely didn't see such a good film coming. It certainly was one of the best action-thrillers I have seen in a very long time. The movie is pretty much in the vein of The Negotiator, only even better. Bruce Willis is at the top of the game in this one and the movie is even better than other Willis' feature this year, Sin City.

The movie captivated me from the very first minute to the last. The plot was much more contrived than I expected it to be and the action scenes while only few and far inbetween were very well-executed. Ben Foster was great as the insane villain Mars and the supporting cast altogether did a good job. The action was shown in a very realistic way and therefore was pretty brutal. The movie manages to keep up the suspense in many scenes. The only let-down was the somewhat rushed ending that I felt could have been expanded on, but all inall it was one blast of a movie. The opening and the closing credits were a work of art, very well done and the cinematography in the movie was really good. I probably should have seen that all coming knowing that the director of this movcie directed the great French actioner The Nest. Anyway, this one was catapulted into my Top 5 of the year upon my first viewing and it still resides there. Great film for all action and thriller fans!

Very average action flick. Bruce is himself as always, but the rest of the cast is pretty bad. The three teenagers, cops, "FBI", and two kids were just flat out terrible. Kevin Pollack seemed to be miscast. The end leaves many thing left unanswered, and the story is just all to crazy to be believable at all. Some of the action is cool, but it's a very forgetable and flawed film.

-C+

Um, did we see the same movie here?

Other than being loud, shrill and agonizing to watch, I got nothing out of it. Just another cop movie where the lead character has to overcome past demons to "get back in the game".

D

At least I know where to file Cotton's opinions now...