If Hostage looks a lot like a state-of-the-art French "policier" minus the pesky subtitles, the effect is purely intentional.
In his English-language debut, French director Florent Siri employs the same forceful, gritty style used for his 2002 film, The Nest, delivering a noir-tinged thriller with commercial aspirations.
The latter aspect is provided by Bruce Willis, who leads a similarly solid cast through the sharp twists and turns of Doug Richardson's script, based on the Robert Crais novel.
Sharing certain plot aspects with Panic Room, the picture should prove to be a moderate hit for Miramax, which has been buying a considerable amount of advance TV ad time in support of Willis' return to crime-fighting mode.
Willis is Jeff Talley, a former ace LAPD hostage negotiator, who, following the deaths of a mother and her young son, left Los Angeles and took a job as chief of police in a nominally low-crime area of Ventura County.
But he soon finds himself in the thick of things again after a trio of delinquent teenagers (Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker and Marshall Allman) hold a widowed, shady accountant (Kevin Pollak) and his two children (Michelle Horn and Jimmy Bennett) hostage following a bungled robbery attempt in their multimillion-dollar hilltop compound.
To further complicate matters, Pollak's Walter Smith is in possession of a disc containing digital information being sought by a particularly persuasive (federal?) outfit that has nabbed Talley's own estranged wife (Serena Scott Thomas) and daughter (Willis' real-life daughter, Rumer), to ensure that he delivers the goods.
Playing what is essentially an art house version of his Die Hard John McClane character, Willis wears the added layers of complexity effectively, as a reluctant hero struggling to clear a tricky path to redemption.
Also impressive is Foster in a change-of-pace turn as the creepy ringleader of the teenage assailants and scene-stealing young Bennett, who manages to fend quite nicely for himself in his fortress of a home.
Director Siri's heavily stylized visual approach translates successfully, at least before everything reaches an overly operatic third-act crescendo.
Contributing to the picture's edgy look is Italian cinematographer Giovanni Fiore Coltellacci, who was Siri's collaborator on The Nest, and production designer Larry Fulton, who worked on Willis' The Sixth Sense and succeeds in turning the sprawling Topanga Canyon compound into a bona fide character.
Completing the mood is an aria of a score by ever-versatile Alexandre Desplat (Birth, Girl With a Pearl Earring, ) that keeps tempo with each sudden plot curve and constantly shifting emotional tone.
Hostage
Miramax
Miramax Films and Stratus Film Co. present a Cheyenne Enterprises production
An Equity Pictures Medienfonds GmbH & Co. KG II production in association with Syndicate Films International
Credits:
Director: Florent Siri
Screenplay: Doug Richardson
Based on the book by Robert Crais
Producers: Mark Gordon, Robert Yari, Bruce Willis, Arnold Rifkin
Executive producers: Hawk Koch, David Wally, Andreas Thiesmeyer, Josef Lautenschlager
Director of photography: Giovanni Fiore Coltellacci
Production designer: Larry Fulton
Editors: Olivier Gajan, Richard J.P. Byard
Costume designer: Elisabetta Beraldo
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
Jeff Talley: Bruce Willis
Walter Smith: Kevin Pollak
Mars Krupcheck: Ben Foster
Dennis Kelly: Jonathan Tucker
Kevin Kelly: Marshall Allman
Jennifer Smith: Michelle Horn
Tommy Smith: Jimmy Bennett
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 113 minutes...
In his English-language debut, French director Florent Siri employs the same forceful, gritty style used for his 2002 film, The Nest, delivering a noir-tinged thriller with commercial aspirations.
The latter aspect is provided by Bruce Willis, who leads a similarly solid cast through the sharp twists and turns of Doug Richardson's script, based on the Robert Crais novel.
Sharing certain plot aspects with Panic Room, the picture should prove to be a moderate hit for Miramax, which has been buying a considerable amount of advance TV ad time in support of Willis' return to crime-fighting mode.
Willis is Jeff Talley, a former ace LAPD hostage negotiator, who, following the deaths of a mother and her young son, left Los Angeles and took a job as chief of police in a nominally low-crime area of Ventura County.
But he soon finds himself in the thick of things again after a trio of delinquent teenagers (Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker and Marshall Allman) hold a widowed, shady accountant (Kevin Pollak) and his two children (Michelle Horn and Jimmy Bennett) hostage following a bungled robbery attempt in their multimillion-dollar hilltop compound.
To further complicate matters, Pollak's Walter Smith is in possession of a disc containing digital information being sought by a particularly persuasive (federal?) outfit that has nabbed Talley's own estranged wife (Serena Scott Thomas) and daughter (Willis' real-life daughter, Rumer), to ensure that he delivers the goods.
Playing what is essentially an art house version of his Die Hard John McClane character, Willis wears the added layers of complexity effectively, as a reluctant hero struggling to clear a tricky path to redemption.
Also impressive is Foster in a change-of-pace turn as the creepy ringleader of the teenage assailants and scene-stealing young Bennett, who manages to fend quite nicely for himself in his fortress of a home.
Director Siri's heavily stylized visual approach translates successfully, at least before everything reaches an overly operatic third-act crescendo.
Contributing to the picture's edgy look is Italian cinematographer Giovanni Fiore Coltellacci, who was Siri's collaborator on The Nest, and production designer Larry Fulton, who worked on Willis' The Sixth Sense and succeeds in turning the sprawling Topanga Canyon compound into a bona fide character.
Completing the mood is an aria of a score by ever-versatile Alexandre Desplat (Birth, Girl With a Pearl Earring, ) that keeps tempo with each sudden plot curve and constantly shifting emotional tone.
Hostage
Miramax
Miramax Films and Stratus Film Co. present a Cheyenne Enterprises production
An Equity Pictures Medienfonds GmbH & Co. KG II production in association with Syndicate Films International
Credits:
Director: Florent Siri
Screenplay: Doug Richardson
Based on the book by Robert Crais
Producers: Mark Gordon, Robert Yari, Bruce Willis, Arnold Rifkin
Executive producers: Hawk Koch, David Wally, Andreas Thiesmeyer, Josef Lautenschlager
Director of photography: Giovanni Fiore Coltellacci
Production designer: Larry Fulton
Editors: Olivier Gajan, Richard J.P. Byard
Costume designer: Elisabetta Beraldo
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
Jeff Talley: Bruce Willis
Walter Smith: Kevin Pollak
Mars Krupcheck: Ben Foster
Dennis Kelly: Jonathan Tucker
Kevin Kelly: Marshall Allman
Jennifer Smith: Michelle Horn
Tommy Smith: Jimmy Bennett
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 113 minutes...
- 3/25/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A movie misnomer if there ever was one, "Picture Perfect" is a textbook example of how not to make a romantic comedy.
Sure, it's got all the trappings -- an unlucky-in-love female lead (Jennifer Aniston), a supportive best friend (Illeana Douglas), a wrong guy she takes for Mr. Right (Kevin Bacon), a right guy but she doesn't know it yet (Jay Mohr), a couple of wedding sequences and a generous selection of standards on the soundtrack. But director Glenn Gordon Caron and writers Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky have made one disastrous slip-up: They've neglected to make their protagonist sympathetic.
Despite Aniston's considerable comic charm, her Herculean efforts here just aren't enough to overcome her character's tragic flaw, not to mention the plodding comic pacing and nonsensical plotting.
At the boxoffice, it's not going to be a pretty picture.
A talented ad executive, Aniston's Kate Mosely finds her professional life interfering with her personal life when she discovers her boss, Mr. Mercer (Kevin Dunn), won't consider her for a promotion because she's (a) unattached and (b) doesn't own property. Hence, with no tangible responsibilities, there's nothing to stop her from picking up and leaving the firm anytime she feels like it!
Buying into Mercer's logic (and with the filmmakers expecting viewers to do likewise), Kate, with much prodding from colleague Darcy O'Neal (Douglas), fabricates a fiance, offering as evidence a Polaroid taken of her with Nick (Mohr), the nice young videographer at her friend's wedding.
Kate gets her promotion, but when her boss wants to take her and her beau out for dinner, she has to track down Nick and strike a deal with him to play the part -- and then to stage a breakup with her in front of her employer. Meanwhile, Kate has been going hot and heavy with co-worker Sam Mayfair (Bacon), a rogue playboy who's only attracted to unavailable women.
Of course, nothing goes as planned, but after the dust settles, Kate learns what's truly important in life. Or something like that.
The cast certainly does what it can with the material. Aside from Aniston's noble attempts, Bacon plays the part of the swaggering cad with just the right amount of smarm, and Olympia Dukakis pours it on thick as Kate's smothering mother.
Mohr, last seen as Tom Cruise's two-fisted cell phone-calling rival in "Jerry Maguire", is fine as the nice guy with an agenda, but, as written, he comes across more as a plot contrivance than an actual character. The much-needed chemistry between the two is never convincingly generated.
On the other side of the camera, the production values are all certainly serviceable.
PICTURE PERFECT
20th Century Fox
A 3 Arts production
A Glenn Gordon Caron film
Director Glenn Gordon Caron
Screenwriters Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky
and Glenn Gordon Caron
Story Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky
& May Quigley
Producer Erwin Stoff
Executive producers William Teitler,
Molly Madden
Director of photography Paul Sarossy
Production designer Larry Fulton
Editor Robert Reitano
Costume designer Jane Robinson
Music Carter Burwell
Casting Mary Colquhoun
Color/stereo
Cast:
Kate Jennifer Aniston
Nick Jay Mohr
Sam Kevin Bacon
Rita Olympia Dukakis
Darcy Illeana Douglas
Mr. Mercer Kevin Dunn
Sela Anne Twomey
Mrs. Mercer Faith Prince
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Sure, it's got all the trappings -- an unlucky-in-love female lead (Jennifer Aniston), a supportive best friend (Illeana Douglas), a wrong guy she takes for Mr. Right (Kevin Bacon), a right guy but she doesn't know it yet (Jay Mohr), a couple of wedding sequences and a generous selection of standards on the soundtrack. But director Glenn Gordon Caron and writers Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky have made one disastrous slip-up: They've neglected to make their protagonist sympathetic.
Despite Aniston's considerable comic charm, her Herculean efforts here just aren't enough to overcome her character's tragic flaw, not to mention the plodding comic pacing and nonsensical plotting.
At the boxoffice, it's not going to be a pretty picture.
A talented ad executive, Aniston's Kate Mosely finds her professional life interfering with her personal life when she discovers her boss, Mr. Mercer (Kevin Dunn), won't consider her for a promotion because she's (a) unattached and (b) doesn't own property. Hence, with no tangible responsibilities, there's nothing to stop her from picking up and leaving the firm anytime she feels like it!
Buying into Mercer's logic (and with the filmmakers expecting viewers to do likewise), Kate, with much prodding from colleague Darcy O'Neal (Douglas), fabricates a fiance, offering as evidence a Polaroid taken of her with Nick (Mohr), the nice young videographer at her friend's wedding.
Kate gets her promotion, but when her boss wants to take her and her beau out for dinner, she has to track down Nick and strike a deal with him to play the part -- and then to stage a breakup with her in front of her employer. Meanwhile, Kate has been going hot and heavy with co-worker Sam Mayfair (Bacon), a rogue playboy who's only attracted to unavailable women.
Of course, nothing goes as planned, but after the dust settles, Kate learns what's truly important in life. Or something like that.
The cast certainly does what it can with the material. Aside from Aniston's noble attempts, Bacon plays the part of the swaggering cad with just the right amount of smarm, and Olympia Dukakis pours it on thick as Kate's smothering mother.
Mohr, last seen as Tom Cruise's two-fisted cell phone-calling rival in "Jerry Maguire", is fine as the nice guy with an agenda, but, as written, he comes across more as a plot contrivance than an actual character. The much-needed chemistry between the two is never convincingly generated.
On the other side of the camera, the production values are all certainly serviceable.
PICTURE PERFECT
20th Century Fox
A 3 Arts production
A Glenn Gordon Caron film
Director Glenn Gordon Caron
Screenwriters Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky
and Glenn Gordon Caron
Story Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky
& May Quigley
Producer Erwin Stoff
Executive producers William Teitler,
Molly Madden
Director of photography Paul Sarossy
Production designer Larry Fulton
Editor Robert Reitano
Costume designer Jane Robinson
Music Carter Burwell
Casting Mary Colquhoun
Color/stereo
Cast:
Kate Jennifer Aniston
Nick Jay Mohr
Sam Kevin Bacon
Rita Olympia Dukakis
Darcy Illeana Douglas
Mr. Mercer Kevin Dunn
Sela Anne Twomey
Mrs. Mercer Faith Prince
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 7/28/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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