Hostage

Former L.A. hostage negotiator Jeff Tally (Bruce Willis) thought he'd left the past behind when he quit his job after not only failing to persuade a suicidal maniac to reconsider his choices, but also losing an innocent child in the process. Now, his quiet existence as police chief of bucolic Bristo Camino is shattered when a family linked to the mob is taken hostage by wayward thieves, one of whom is a serial killer. Can Jeff pull this one off?

For Bruce Willis, "Hostage" returns the actor to the genre of his best work. Jeff Talley is a character not unlike "Die Hard" hero John McClane; a role that digs deep into psychological readings as well as guns o' plenty. Willis is great here as the tortured cop, but his performance is more in the reluctant hero vein, while Siri, as mentioned before, is making a completely different movie. Willis's performance simmers down to standard run-n-shoot style theatrics, but his insistence that "Hostage" isn't a Wes Craven movie keeps the emotional suspense engaging.

The last 30 minutes of "Hostage" is a terribly busy bore, and does an excellent job of creating a bad taste to a film that isn't a complete washout and a decent genre exercise. If one could mentally match up the three movies being made here, that would certainly help "Hostage's" chances for entertainment.

Rating: 3/5