Hostage (2005)

Directed by: Florent Emilio Siri | 113 minutes | action, drama, crime, thriller | Actors: Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollack, Jimmy Bennett, Michelle Horn, Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker, Marshall Allman, Serena Scott Thomas, Rumer Willis, Kim Coates, Robert Knepper

Director Florent Emilio Siri is not really known. Of the two films on his resume, ‘The Nest’ may have been seen by a bored video store visitor. In this French action flick, Samy Naceri (“Taxi”) gets involved in quite a few gunfights that never get interesting at any point. No, visitors to ‘Hostage’ are more likely to go for the bald head of Bruce Willis on the poster, a heavyweight in the action genre.

It’s also a bit of a shock when in the opening scene Willis’s face is covered with a big beard and head of hair. It doesn’t take long to see that behind all that hair is the old trusty movie hero. In the first minutes, in which Jeff Talley tries to persuade a man not to shoot his son, the pace of the film is immediately set. As so often in films, an introductory storyline is used at the beginning to get to know the characters and to reassure the moviegoer that it is an action film. It is therefore an unsurprising start, but the tension is there, the main character has been introduced and the film can begin.

A year and a haircut later, Talley is a police chief in a small village. People are also taken hostage in small villages and the victim is the wealthy Walter Smith, played by Kevin Pollak. He and his son and daughter are trapped in their high-security home under the duress of three teenagers. Fortunately, the tone of the film changes just when you think you’re watching a Hollywood-rugged hostage action. We deviate from the clichéd storyline when it turns out that Talley has to negotiate more than the lives of the hostages.

Bruce Willis is on a roll as an action hero, a role he can play like no one else. Kevin Pollak, who has apparently found a friend working with Willis on The Whole Nine Yards, plays his part calmly and convincingly. No one in the cast stands out, but there are also no actors to annoy the viewer. The son is played by Jimmy Bennett, maybe not the next Haley Joel Osment, but not a bad actor either. Incidentally, there is again a small role for Rumer Willis, the daughter of Bruce and Demi Moore, who is now addicted to Ashton Kutcher.

You should see a movie like ‘Hostage’ without knowing too much about the plot. Be surprised by an exciting action film that makes it clear to you in the last thirty minutes why you bought that cinema ticket.