It probably won't do very well at the box office, but it sure looks good quality wise! Speaking of which, here's a great (and overwhelmingly positive) review:
Hostage
A Review by Tyler Foster
for
http://www.funkdiggityfresh.com
Hostage is Bruce Willis's best movie and performance since Pulp Fiction. It's the best action vehicle he's been in since Die Hard. If intensity was all that counted, it would be better than Die Hard. There's no comparison to the suspense. Hostage is exactly what a thriller should be. Quick prologue, some set up, and then suddenly, the movie just starts and refuses to stop until the final frame. All the muscles in my body ached when it ended because they were clenched the entire time. Yes, there's around a minute's worth of material in Hostage that doesn't work, but who the hell cares? Hostage is the first movie of 2005 that's completely worth the price of admission, and possibly the best pure suspense movie this critic's ever seen.
Forget a plot summary. Trying would be futile, not to mention a good way to ruin the surprises that Hostage has in store. Bruce Willis is a hostage negotiator -- and that's all the audience needs to know. The movie's various elements, like a macabre clockwork, all begin falling into place, each one twisting the situation with a whole new set of rules. The characters feel real, from Willis's Jeff Talley to the young Jimmy Bennett as Tommy Smith, one of the hostages, everyone in the movie is genuine, and it only makes the danger more frightening. The moment we only get to see one of them, when the focus is turned on a single character, is the moment everything feels unsafe.
Director Florent Siri hasn't done an American movie, but he is sure to get many more. The opening credits, almost like the beginning laid out with army men, is a nice touch (although the use of the Star Wars font is a bit distracting). However, there's no indication of where the movie is going to go from there, and it gets right to the surprises. The movie is shockingly violent and extremely disturbing, heading to the edges of cliffs and turning the corners of alleys where everything about the situation screams that it's the wrong way to go. Every choice in the movie is a hard one, the kinds of things that make you forget to breathe.
The movie was adapted by Robert Crais's novel by Doug Richardson, who is hard at work on Die Hard 4.0. Hostage is enough to erase all doubt about that sequel. While admittedly this critic hasn't read the book, it just feels like you would imagine a great book might read. The sensation that Richardson found the best things from the book that would translate to the screen and carefully perfected each one of them is all over Hostage, with the narrative unafraid to introduce multiple parties, surprise elements and small yet horrifying twists without worry that the audience is going to get confused. Hostage is a layered movie, not a confusing one.
The minute of footage mentioned earlier contains the smallest shreds of the movie that might have been expected from Hostage's trailer. Tiny bits of directorial indulgence, a few moments that very, very briefly might cause a laugh or two unintentionally, but nothing that can break down Hostage's bulletproof atmosphere. The worst is a few seconds near the finale where a bit of symbolism is driven too hard, but the fate of the characters hangs so much in the balance that it was hard for this critic to care. But this and the movie's other small blemishes are only mentioned because it has to be before someone goes off because it wasn't brought up here.
Hostage closes with the trickiest thriller move of all, an almost-but-not-quite surprise finale much like, say, the subway in Speed: a secret second wind. By the time the final frame appears on screen, and the circulation starts flowing again, this critic sat speechless in the theater. Hostage didn't look like much in theory, but it's much, much better than it had to or even deserved to be. Maybe it won't work the second time, maybe it's all in the surprise, and, no, Hostage doesn't try to be more than a suspense thriller; it's no Fight Club or Pulp Fiction. But it just doesn't matter, because when it's all finally over, there's nothing like the last overwhelming feeling Hostage brings to the table -- intense satisfaction.
Grade: A+
Starring Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak, Jonathan Tucker, Ben Foster, Jimmy Bennett and Michelle Horn
Directed by Florent Siri
Miramax Films (2005), 102 Minutes
Rated R for strong graphic violence, language and some drug use
_________________revolutions wrote:
that one dude with the giant ass mi:3 logo
and many more.