Hopefully, Hostage is no indication of what Bruce Willis will do in the upcoming Die Hard 4.
Hostage has one of the greatest action film scores in recent memory. It swoops and swirls, hinting at coming threats, and is reminiscent of the fantastic work Leonard Bernstein did for Alfred Hitchcock films. And that’s probably the only redeeming thing about this banal and deplorable waste of film. Hostage wails on you, beating you senseless with gore, fireballs, rapid-fire vulgarity and obscene levels of threat without a moment to spare, drowning your senses in an orgy of grotesque, empty violence.
Bruce Willis, no stranger to these types of films, squints through the lead role of Jeff Talley, a hostage negotiator now dedicated to a low-key gig as the sheriff for a stereotypical small town. In these types of movies, you can always judge the kind of town by the way the cops act, and when you see a bunch of geezers behind desks commenting on work apparel, you can figure it’s one of those towns where the local shopkeep knows everyone’s name. Talley is recovering from a botched negotiation attempt years ago in which lives were taken, a sequence that opens the movie and theoretically gives this character a past, although we know it’s merely an excuse for some early carnage.
But then the calm of the small town is broken, and Talley is called into action when a violent siege on a local mansion results in the death of a cop. The culprits, three foul-mouthed youths with guns and too much free time, swipe a car and accidentally turn the incident into a full-fledged hostage standoff. Meanwhile, the three kids, vagrant Dennis (Jonathan Tucker), generous Kevin (Marshall Allman) and sociopathic loner Mars (Ben Foster), fight among themselves about the fate of the mansion, money found inside and the nuisance of the hostage family.
While Talley gives up jurisdiction to an out-of-town police force, we know he’s not out of trouble yet. Sure enough, the mansion belongs to some very powerful villains who are familiar with the “famous” former negotiator. Only in movies are people familiar with hostage negotiators (as if he’s Will Bowers or something). The mansion owners kidnap Talley’s family, demanding he recover an incriminating computer file located in the house in order to save his family. What follows is a series of contrived, bloody encounters, as Talley confronts the youngsters in an attempt to end things and bring his props, er, family back.
In this day and age, when a penis shot can merit an NC-17 rating, garbage like Hostage, with gratuitous gore, gets a free pass. We see characters leering at a woman bound and gagged on a bed, multiple stabbings, gunshots and assorted other murders, all committed by or involving youths.
This movie tosses taboos out the window when it comes to dark, disturbing violence, even stooping as low as to spotlight the slit throat of a puppy. This type of extreme carnage works in the context of a story with characters worth caring about, a la Kill Bill, but here, the film can’t figure out how it feels about its characters.
Indeed, Mars is portrayed as a disturbed, confused outsider looking for affection, but he transforms into a Terminator-like character in the third act with a stylish slow-motion shot of him walking down a hallway clasping two Molotov cocktails.
Hostage may be considered as something of a warm-up for Die Hard 4, which Willis might be shooting later this year, but if this film is any indication, Detective John McClane should have stayed very much retired.
