Release Year: 2005 Rating: R Duration: 102 minutes Director: Florent Emilio Siri Producer: Mark Gordon, Arnold Rifkin, Bob Yari, Bruce Willis, Richard D Zanuck Distributor: Miramax Films
Devastated by a hostage situation that resulted in the deaths of a young mother and her child, LAPD negotiator Jeff Talley exists Los Angeles for a low-profile job as chief of police in the low-crime town of Bristo Camino in Ventura County. When three delinquent teenagers follow a family home intending to steal their car, they inadvertently pick the wrong house on the wrong day. The trio finds themselves trapped in a multi-million dollar compound on the outskirts of town owned by a corrupt accountant. Panicked, the teenagers take the family hostage, placing Talley in exactly the kind of situation he never wanted to face again. Soon after, Talley readily hands authority of the hostage situation over to the Ventura County Sherriff’s department and leaves the scene. But inside the compound, is digital information critical to the mysterious criminals and their operation. They will stop at nothing to get what belongs to them, including taking Talley’s family hostage and, forcing him to resume the command he had abandoned. The stakes quickly evolve into a situation far more volatile and terrifying than anything he could ever imagine.
In his English-language debut, director Florent Siri knocks out a noir film that must rank among the genre's most suspenseful and exciting pics in recent years. "Hostage," adapted by Doug Richardson from Robert Crais's best-selling novel, is a study in extreme tension. A police officer, once the senior hostage negotiator in L.A. who now settles for a job as police chief in a California hamlet,is beset by conflict. Should he risk the lives of people trapped by a trio of young thugs in order to save his own family who are now hostages themselves, held by a band of hooded, professional and determined criminals to compel the negotiator to enter a building in a cop-surrounded household and leave with a copy of a most important DVD?
