Willis manages to be the best thing in the picture, and largely because of him I was willing to overlook the plot's ridiculous loopholes and exaggerations.
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When Bruce Willis reinvigorated the action/adventure genre with "Die Hard" in 1988, he did so with a cast of well-established good guys and bad guys, a ton of thrills, and his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Ever since then, Willis has been a capable action hero, so we had every right to expect good things from him in 2005's "Hostage."
What we get in "Hostage" is an absolutely improbable, incredibly impossible, totally absurd action thriller with no pretense whatsoever of irony or humor. Yet, like a similarly unlikely action flick of the year before, "Man on Fire" with Denzel Washington, it's the sheer force of the star's presence that carries the day. Commanding performances by Washington in the one case and Willis in the other make both films watchable and fun, though not particularly memorable. Look out where you aim that gun, pardner, but shoot me if you must; I liked the movie.
As usual, Willis plays a cop. This time he's Jeff Talley, a former S.W.A.T. team specialist and hostage negotiator who has given up both trades for a nice, peaceful job as Chief of Police of a nice, peaceful Southern California town called Bristo Camino. But trouble follows Talley everywhere. What else? We know he's really Bruce Willis.
While the opening sequence is gripping, it's much like the problem in "Man on Fire" in that it involves putting a child in danger. But "Hostage" does "Man on Fire" quadruple; it eventually puts four children (OK, some are teens) in danger. I wish it hadn't; I don't like the gimmick; it's cheap; it's an easy way to gain our sympathy. But there you have it. Accept it and you enjoy the film a lot more.
We're introduced early on to Talley's wife (Serena Scott Thomas) and teenage daughter (Rumer Willis, the real-life daughter of Willis and Demi Moore), just as soon as the three of them move to Bristo Camino. The mother and father argue, and the daughter hates the place and hates her parents for fighting.
Next, we're introduced to the first of the story's several main conflicts. Three young carjackers--Mars (Ben Foster), Kevin (Marshall Allman), and Dennis (Jonathan Tucker)--invade the home of a wealthy man, Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak), and his two kids, Tommy (Jimmy Bennett) and Jennifer (Michelle Horn), to steal their automobile. But Mars, a psycho killer, goes nuts, and when a policewoman shows up, he kills her. There's no escape for the Chief. Talley has to come to the rescue and surround the place, while inside the three carjacker/murderers are holed up with the Smith family.
But that's just the beginning. The house is enormous and fully armored. It's got security shields that completely close down the place, making it into a fortress. Why? We don't know. Then, the carjackers find that there are television cameras in every room and even more cameras outside. Again, why? Further, they find bags of money lying around; literally, bags of hundred-dollar bills. Yet again, a big why? What's more, we find the whole house is honeycombed with secret passageways and ventilator shafts big enough for people to crawl through. Say, just who are these Smiths, anyway?
Talley tries to turn the situation over to the county authorities and just walk away, but as soon as he does so, more complications arise. Things just keeping piling up and piling on for the guy. Mysterious masked men show up, holding Talley's wife and daughter prisoner. So we get two sets of bad guys, each holding people hostage. But why? More to the point, why did the filmmakers feel the need to complicate the plot so much with one set of bad guys surrounding another set of bad guys?
The opening credits are done up in a dark comic-book style that seemed to belie what I expected to be a grittily realistic police yarn. It's only when the movie is over that one realizes this isn't a grittily realistic police yarn. Not even close. It's a pulp fiction, an outrageous whopper that keeps getting more involved, more intricate, and less believable as it goes along. Yet, as I've said, Willis firmly plants himself in the role, director Florent Siri keeps the pace jumping, and the noir tone never lets up for an instant.
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[release]15930[/release]