Hostage Review

It's been ages since we last saw Bruce Willis going toe-to-toe with nefarious criminal types, so fans of action man Bruce will be pleased to hear that he's back on fine form in this extremely loud thriller. Willis plays Jeff Talley, a former LA hostage negotiator whose career took a serious dive when a standoff ended in tragedy. Having relocated to a low-crime Californian town of Bristo Camino, Jeff now serves as Chief Of Police where the worst he normally faces is jaywalkers. But when a gang of teenagers bungle an attempted robbery at a heavily fortified house just outside the town, Jeff finds himself in the thick of it as a deadly hostage situation develops. And just to make matters worse for our hero, the mob has an interest in the house consequently holds his family hostage to make sure Jeff sorts the matter out to their satisfaction.

Tense and considerably darker than your standard action adventure fare, "Hostage" has all the classic cliches we'd expect from the genre - including a young kid who teaches our hero an important life lesson - but also weighs in with some more menacing tones, especially when the young girl trapped in house has to fight off one of the raiders sexual advances. Visually things are exactly as you'd expect - plenty of fast camera work, close ups of tortured looking faces and more gunplay than the OK Corral on a busy night - but in a depraved sort of way, it's great to see Bruce back in this genre kicking butt. "Hostage" may not be the most artistically valid movie ever made but it's bound to please the Saturday night blockbuster crowd.