Where’s John McClane When You Need ‘Em?
HOSTAGE

RATING: B-

Starring Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollack, Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker. Music by Alexandre Desplat, Co-Producer David Willis, Costume Designer Elisabeta Beraldo, Edited by Olivier Gajan, Richard J.P. Byard, Production Designer Larry Fulton, Director of Photography Giovanni Fiorre Coltelacci, Produced by Bruce Willis, Arnold Rifkin, Mark Gordon, Bob Yari, Based on the book by Robert Crais, Screenplay by Doug Richardson, Directed by Florent Siri.

Rated R, Running Time 113 mins., 2.39 to 1 Anamorphic Scope Aspect Ratio.

Bruce Willis’ career seems to fly in the shape of a parabola. It’s traveled between well oiled action extravaganzas like the “Die Hard” series, nicely done supporting character pieces like “Pulp Fiction”, intelligent horror like “The Sixth Sense” and all the insulting crap in between. (“Color of Night” and the “…Yards” films come to mind.) With his latest film “Hostage” it’s tough to tell which direction he’s heading in. On one hand, the film a somewhat satisfying feature that has a bit too much confidence in itself and on the other its path seems to be heading right into the Bermuda triangle. Looking very much like his grizzled Vietnam vet from “In Country”, Willis’ actions as an L.A. hostage negotiator end in tragedy in the film’s opening sequence, resulting in his decision to hang it up and head for the hills. One year later, a clean shaven Willis is the sheriff of a small county where his biggest problem is the tension between him and his estranged wife (Serena Scott Thomas) and daughter (Rumer Willis a.k.a Demi’s kid) over their family’s drastic relocation.

Of course if you’ve seen the advertisements and are familiar with what Bruce Willis films are all about you know that this picture isn’t about the domestic life of a sheriff in a small town. Willis finds his hands full when three local punks decide to steal a car from the home of Kevin Pollack, who resides in a mansion high up in the hills. With experience only in liquor store robberies and car-jacking, it’s pretty obvious that these three are gonna screw it up. Before long they’ve taken Pollack and his teenage daughter and young son hostage after they learn the police have been silently alerted. With the death of a county patrol woman on their hands (quickly but nicely played by B-movie actress Marjean Holden) these three Stooges find themselves locked within a massive compound that’s equipped with a state of the art security and surveillance system. As sheriff, Willis finds himself on the scene as the initial negotiator, but quickly turns over duty to the FBI. Only when he’s abducted by masked gunmen after leaving the crime scene does he discover the gravity of his situation.

The reason why the mild mannered Pollack’s home has such an elaborate security system is that he’s an accountant for shady underworld businessmen. Somewhere within the house is a dvd encrypted with financial information that these men need desperately. They need to take action upon the house and that requires Willis’ co-operation. The masked gunmen inform him that if he fails to comply his wife and daughter will be killed. Taking lead of the investigation Willis figures that in order to save his family and Pollack’s he’ll have to play both sides. Of course in such a deadly game there’s always a wild card and that’s the dissent in the house amongst perpetrators Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker and Marshall Allman.

Director Florent Siri, has a talent for ratcheting up the tension as Willis finds himself in one uncomfortable situation after another. Whether it be witnessing his family physically threatened or risking the safety of a hostage, you feel his pain. Willis is game for such a role, he’s played it before and can pull it off well, it’s just too bad there isn’t another actor who can mirror his performance. Films like this require a strong hero and fall flat without a proper villain. There are multiple characters in “Hostage” both good and bad, but not one can hold their own against Willis’ firmly established hero. Only three seem to establish themselves in their own right. One fails miserable, neither of them share any significant interaction with Willis. The first is character actor Kim Coates, seen countless times as a thug or henchman in movies. You may remember him as the thug who Willis killed just by breaking his nose in “The Last Boy Scout.” As the leader of the masked gunmen, he does have an ominous presence, but unfortunately, his appearance is brief and nothing more than a voice dubbed over another masked actor or over a phone.

The second is Jimmy Bennett as Pollack’s young son, who manages to set himself free, contact Willis via cell phone and crawl around in air ducts under the kidnapper’s noses. He’s “John McClane” to Willis’ “Sgt. Al Powell”, but unlike “Die Hard there isn’t any sense of an emotional bond between these characters. One can’t help but feel nervous at Willis’ selfishness in asking the poor kid to snoop around a band of killers just to find a hidden dvd. Willis discovers that even though Jonathan Tucker claims to be the leader, sociopath Ben Foster is really running the show. As a character with a tragic upbringing, Foster attempts to channel Brandon Lee’s screen presence from “The Crow” but comes across as a Nine Inch Nails wannabe back from a concert. Surprisingly his increasingly threatening performance is more powerful than the masked men who have Willis’ family, but he also manages to make a complete jackass out of himself. Foster travels from one extreme to another, displaying his intrigue with death in one scene and attempting to woo Pollack’s teenage daughter Michelle Horn in another. The filmmakers aren’t sure if they want us to identify with this killer or just plain hate his wickedness. One thing’s for sure with his jet black hair he got the better stylist than Horn.

Willis’s attempts to outsmart the perpetrators in the house initially seem plausible until they continually backfire and he ultimately decides to shoot holes bigger than those in the plot. He’s consistently trying to stay a step ahead of the police tactical unit waiting to storm the mansion but anyone with common sense will be able to see that this picture defies the logic of hostage crisis procedures and the chain of command. Siri is adept at building tension and situations within claustrophobic space. The plot of his previous feature “Nid de guêpes” (“The Nest”) involved a “Die Hard” type situation but it was far more creative.

It seems that for his American debut he is hell bent on copying angles, techniques, film speeds, lighting and music cues from just about every film he’s ever seen. Alexandre Desplat’s wonderful score swells at inappropriate times when nothing’s really happening on screen, slow-motion occurs when nothing’s really happening on screen, the camera sways inappropriately when nothing’s really happening on screen and the typical fire and explosions happen when… you guessed it, nothing’s really happening on screen. These stylistic choices don’t serve the story one bit. Then there are moments when Siri attempts to showcase visual poetry but winds up looking like a fool instead of an artist. One scene in particular involves Horn covered with a wet towel and looking like the Virgin Mary as she witnesses Foster striding towards her in slo-mo, arms outstretched like Christ with Molotov cocktails in his hands as the house burns around them. Perhaps one truly memorable element of the film is its imaginative black & white animated opening credit sequence filled with a blood red sky that makes you wonder: “When is Sin City coming out?”

With all of its shortcomings, “Hostage” could be a lot worse. Hidden within all the excess style is a taut little thriller that has a few thrills and a smidgen of bloody action moments for Willis fans. Although the cardboard characters are non-threatening and the story is humorless, Willis attempts to give a credible performance without the one-liners he’s know for. Well, at least for a little while until he ultimately decides to chuck that notion and create one of those violent and bloody messes he’s know for. Maybe that alone works for you.