Movie Review - Hostage

let me start by defending my summary. the film starts very hard, very aggressive, very in your face and then fizzles out a bit until the house is burgled. the burglars are stupid and kill a cop (that's suicide basically) and then practically kill one of their hostages.

as soon as Marshall kills the cop it's totally obvious he's in charge and not the other guy who seems to think he is. Bruce Willis seems to be eternally damned to playing these roles. Cop/Law Enforcement Person/Enforcer/Peacemaker who goes into a building/situation and saves people, normally hostages. So, he's back in Die Hard, Sin City, Tears Of The Sun, Mercury Rising, Last man Standing and practically every other film he's ever been in.

I find it hard to believe the director has tried to sell this film just on Bruce Willis being in it. The start of this film is a hostage situation that goes wrong and the hostages and hostage taker all end up dead. OK, so Bruce's character dropped the ball there but he suddenly ends up in a dead end job as a small town sheriff. This really isn't explained why. Is he trying to escape from his 1 failure at his job that we know about? This would have been far more likely if we'd seen him at several negotiations and having all hostages killed at them all. Say maybe 4 or 5 situations all with the same outcome that have driven him to despair and away to the sticks to flee the big city and the high pressure job.

We are also dropped into the deep end of Bruce's family life and conflict with his daughter and wife (this could have also had more background to it, fleshed out a bit more over a few more scenes to give an idea of how that eventuality had come to pass). The actual hostage stuff in the house was good. Bruce's family being captured and Bruce having to do things to keep them alive. Oh, and someone said clues were dropped about the kidnappers identities? I didn't see any. the only thing I noticed was that the guy in the house seemed to know the kidnappers and seemed to be the guy in charge of them. that was just how i saw it anyway.

the film was good but could have done with some more background, the director chose to concentrate on action over storyline. Generally a good film and Bruce Willis fans will like it. The driving away and being reunited with his family was an incredibly weak ending. It would have benefited from unmasking the kidnappers of his family or him killing the guy he rescued or him having the disk and giving it to the real police or keeping it for himself to buy his house on the golf course.