Hostage

Review by Clint Morris

If they gave awards out to the best action heroes each year, Bruce Willis's fireplace would probably adorn a gold statuette and a long line of less significant silver trophies.

He wouldn't have won one in a couple of years though. Fact of the matter is, despite the efforts, Bruno hasn't come close to the marvelously staged thrill-ride Die Hard (1988) - it seems to be the action thriller that no one, it's star included, can beat.

If anything, Willis's own genre follow-ups are usually either as undercooked as steak at a health farm or as barefaced a rip-off as Ice, Ice, Baby was to Under Pressure. They might play to the same beat, but there's something missing in the string section.

Thankfully, Willis leaves no string unpulled in his return to the action genre - after slumming it in a couple of clunker comedies - and it's with Hostage that he may just reclaim his crown as the king of action cinema.

Former hostage negotiator Jeff Talley (Willis) is now working the beat as a small town chief of police, less chance he's going to feel responsible for hostages getting popped. Surprise, surprise though - Talley finds himself called back into action when three hoodlums take a wealthy father (Pollak) and his two children hostage in his area.

That's not all though - Seems a group of career criminals were planning to get something out of the kidnapped Dad tonight, and by God, if they aren't going to still get it. Somehow Talley has to figure out how to save the trio from the crooked kids inside, and from the malicious thugs outside. And did we mention Talley's family has also been snagged?

If the plot isn't a tip-off enough, then some of it's finer elements will definitely have you recollecting the adventures of a shirt-less John McClane in the Nakatomi Plaza: guy, or kid in this place, inside, talking to the copper outside throughout the hostage ordeal, same kid crawling through air ducts and sneaking around the kidnappers, a couple of stomach-churning deaths, and the Feds turning up on the scene and screwing things up.

Yes, Bruce has definitely injected some of the more successful elements of his über-successful original Die Hard into proceedings here. Who can blame him though? The Last Boy Scout, Striking Distance and Tears of the Sun could've done with a tad more of his signature role, and Willis knows it.

But Bruce isn't relying on a nice Xerox to carry proceedings alone though: he's adding a couple of fresh ingredients to an otherwise familiar cocktail. There are some new twists, double the villains, a multi-layered set of new characters and an intriguing new backdrop. In short, it's half a greatest hits album with a couple of bonus new tracks.

Hostage isn't without fault though. There's amplified button pushing in certain scenes which only take it away from the experience - we're supposed to cry with our lead when he breaks down, and it's hammy to think we're going to be robbed of our breath as our hero walks slow-motion from a beam of light - ready to save the day.

Sounds like the studio meddled in the editing room...

In addition, there's about as much chemistry between Willis and on-screen wife Serena Scott Thomas here as there would be in a kindergarten's curriculum. Still, this is solid stuff. And with this bloody tense, electrifying action-packed thrill ride - Bruno Willis has won our vote back.

Just one thing - apparently they've been trying to come up with a solid storyline for the fourth Die Hard for years. This would've been a snug fit, no?

4 out of 5

Hostage
Australian release: Thursday 14th of April, 2005
Cast: Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak, Jimmy Bennett, Michelle Horn, Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker, Marshall Allman, Serena Scott Thomas, Rumer Willis, Kim Coates, Johnny Messner.
Director: Florent Emilio Siri.
Website: Click here.

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