When a family (father and 2 children) are taken hostage by 3 men it's down to officer Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis) and his team to step in and try to rescue the family from this terrifying ordeal. An already tricky situation for Talley is made worse when he learns that the father is working for some criminals who are after a special disc that he has in his house. This 'other' gang kidnap Talley's wife and child and threaten to kill them both unless Talley is able to recover the disc for them. Talley now has the unenviable task of trying to appease his family's kidnappers whilst also trying to rescue the 'kidnapped' family.
Hostage is a film based on a novel by Robert Crais and the screenplay has been adapted by Doug Richardson. I've no idea what the novel is like, but Richardson's screenplay throws up so many unlikely scenarios that it quickly becomes hard to take any of it seriously. Here are a few things that I noticed.....
1) Before the 3 youths kidnap the family they discuss stealing the father's car and this seems to be their intention when they enter the property. Once in the property, they decide (for whatever reason) to kidnap the family, even though they had no real reason to??? If all they wanted was the car then why didn't they just make the father hand over the keys and drive off with the vehicle??? This whole scenario just made no sense to me.
2) The 3 youths follow the family home and wait outside their home before they decide to try to gain entry. The house has CCTV all over the place and has numerous panic switches (which to me suggests that the father is security conscious and for good reason). Yet the 3 youths seem to be able to gain access to the property without any trouble. How exactly did they get in? Was the front door unlocked? This again seems ridiculous. Silly plot contrivances such as these will always drag a film down no matter how exciting or fast-paced they are.
Despite some of these issues The Hostage is a film that pretty much does 'exactly what it says on the tin'. It moves relatively fast over its 105 minute running time and proves to be a thrilling enough experience. There aren't really any surprises in store but director Florent-Emilio Siri provides enough action,claustrophobia and nicely framed set-pieces to compensate for the predictable screenplay. I also liked the comic book style opening credits even though I'm not quite sure why opening credits of this type were used when the source novel was not a comic??
The performances are mostly what you'd expect here; Bruce Willis is good but this is the sort of thing that he can do in his sleep. I also noticed that Bruce Willis' real-life daughter was in the film and I'm assuming that his presence in this film was the only reason that she was included in the film as she was barely in it and contributed very little (apart from having a tantrum at the start). The standout performance for me was that of Ben Foster whose quirky and creepy character made the film that little bit more interesting. It's a pity that his character wasn't developed all that well - I thought initially that a Stockholm Syndrome was developing between his character and the daughter, but it never played out in this manner which is a shame as again this probably would have made it a stronger film. The supporting performers were OK, but for me it was Foster that made the biggest impression.
Hostage is another in a long line of 'switch off your brain' action thrillers and if you're prepared to do just that and go with the flow then there is certainly plenty to enjoy here.
Hostage is a film based on a novel by Robert Crais and the screenplay has been adapted by Doug Richardson. I've no idea what the novel is like, but Richardson's screenplay throws up so many unlikely scenarios that it quickly becomes hard to take any of it seriously. Here are a few things that I noticed.....
1) Before the 3 youths kidnap the family they discuss stealing the father's car and this seems to be their intention when they enter the property. Once in the property, they decide (for whatever reason) to kidnap the family, even though they had no real reason to??? If all they wanted was the car then why didn't they just make the father hand over the keys and drive off with the vehicle??? This whole scenario just made no sense to me.
2) The 3 youths follow the family home and wait outside their home before they decide to try to gain entry. The house has CCTV all over the place and has numerous panic switches (which to me suggests that the father is security conscious and for good reason). Yet the 3 youths seem to be able to gain access to the property without any trouble. How exactly did they get in? Was the front door unlocked? This again seems ridiculous. Silly plot contrivances such as these will always drag a film down no matter how exciting or fast-paced they are.
Despite some of these issues The Hostage is a film that pretty much does 'exactly what it says on the tin'. It moves relatively fast over its 105 minute running time and proves to be a thrilling enough experience. There aren't really any surprises in store but director Florent-Emilio Siri provides enough action,claustrophobia and nicely framed set-pieces to compensate for the predictable screenplay. I also liked the comic book style opening credits even though I'm not quite sure why opening credits of this type were used when the source novel was not a comic??
The performances are mostly what you'd expect here; Bruce Willis is good but this is the sort of thing that he can do in his sleep. I also noticed that Bruce Willis' real-life daughter was in the film and I'm assuming that his presence in this film was the only reason that she was included in the film as she was barely in it and contributed very little (apart from having a tantrum at the start). The standout performance for me was that of Ben Foster whose quirky and creepy character made the film that little bit more interesting. It's a pity that his character wasn't developed all that well - I thought initially that a Stockholm Syndrome was developing between his character and the daughter, but it never played out in this manner which is a shame as again this probably would have made it a stronger film. The supporting performers were OK, but for me it was Foster that made the biggest impression.
Hostage is another in a long line of 'switch off your brain' action thrillers and if you're prepared to do just that and go with the flow then there is certainly plenty to enjoy here.