'Hostage' Movie Review (2005)

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Friday, March 11th 2005 at 12:00 AM

Early word on Hostage was that it was gritty and tough, but in the end it is a tired story, told with way too many cliche moments to be called interesting ultimately becoming an utterly predictable mess.

Bruce Willis stars as Jeff Talley, a one time LAPD negotiator, who thanks to a tragic misstep in his game has saddled himself with a much more mundane post as chief of a two-man police department. But I think we all know that Talley moving to this new post isn't exactly going to be an escape from the rigors of hostage negotiation. Enter the unfortunate Smith family as Papa Smith (Pollack) and his two children soon become the unfortunate victims of a car-jacking gone bad.

I could go further into the storyline, but if you do plan on checking this one out in the theaters it would just ruin it. Let me just say however that Talley is ultimately forced with the responsibility of risking his own life to save the life of his own family.

On top of a storyline that just seems to drag on and on as we wait for the next "unexpected" thing to happen the only treat this film offers is a good stabbing to the jaw, which is hardly worth the price of admissions to movies nowadays.

Willis offers up a performance that is hardly believable and I can't entirely blame it on him as his character is forced to run the gamut of emotions but not necessarily given the proper amount of time to achieve them.

Hostage is Die Hard without the edge of your seat action and even more noticeably an Alan Rickman to play the villain. This a movie you won't care you missed in theaters, but may get a satisfactory Friday night viewing out of while munching on potato chips on your couch. For action junkies the violence this one offers may suffice, but I hardly doubt it considering everything in between.

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