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Hostage [Blu-ray]

1 disc
Region 1 USA/CA (info)

This well-made thriller harkens back to the gritty crime films of the 1970s. Bruce Willis plays Jeff Talley, a traumatized ex-LAPD hostage negotiator whose new career as small town sheriff doesn't turn out to be as restful as he had hoped; a hostage situation breaks out on "low crime Tuesday" and he is thrown right back into the business he knows all too well. Some punk kids have shot a cop and are holed up in a local mansion inhabited by crooked accountant Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak), his two kids, and a lot of surveillance cameras. Walter's young son (Jimmy Bennett) escapes his bonds and reports to Talley from the air shafts via his sister's cell phone. The sister--a Goth teen played by Michelle Horn--draws the romantic attention of Mars (Ben Foster), the pot-addled sociopath in the gang, thus adding a unique twist to the damsel-in-distress factor. Meanwhile, amid the buzzing helicopters and mobilizing S.W.A.T. teams, another group of bad guys has kidnapped Talley's wife and daughter, in order to force him to retrieve a secret disc in Walter's study. Florent Siri's efficient direction keeps the action flowing in unexpected directions while allowing for plenty of interesting procedural details and sly bits of humor. The score is ominous and the performances are strong, with Foster memorably creepy and Willis excellent as the frightened hero.
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Credits

Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollack, Jonathan Tucker, Serena Scott Thomas, Ben Foster, Johnny Messner, Robert Armstrong, Tina Lifford, Marjean Holden, Kim Coates, Michelle Horn, Jimmy Bennett
Critic Reviews

"HOSTAGE exemplifies taut, confident filmmaking. Bruce Willis draws upon the full measure of his strong physical presence, his intelligence and his considerable emotional resources held in reserve."
Los Angeles Times
"[T]he film's vaguely haunted, melancholic European sense of displacement does our Bruno good."
Entertainment Weekly
"HOSTAGE is wonderfully nasty funny -- thanks to an authentic performance from Bruce..."
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