A trio of carjackers—Dennis (Jonathan Tucker) and his younger brother Kevin (Marshall Allman), and the wild card Mars (Ben Foster)—break into a mansion with the intention to steal a car, but the situation escalates and they hold the Smith family hostage. Soon, former hostage negotiator Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis) arrives at the scene, and soon, his own family is kidnapped and Talley must fight to save the Smith family in order to save his own.
The aspect of Talley’s family being kidnapped adds an interesting layer to the film but it makes the story feel convoluted. The reason for the kidnapping is because a group of criminals—the mob, but in the film that’s never said explicitly—need Talley to take charge of the situation so they can retrieve a DVD copy of “Heaven Can Wait” inside the house. This all has to do with the Smith family patriarch, Walter (Kevin Pollak), but I won’t spoil further.
Bruce Willis plays the Talley character well. Like Jean-Claude Van Damme’s fireman in “Sudden Death,” Talley is a hostage negotiator defined by someone he lost on the job, as Talley was not able talk down an unhinged man from killing his wife and son, which we see in frankly brutal detail in the opening scene. He was a big LAPD negotiator who then moves to a small town in California where he now works as the police chief. It’s a fine set-up for who Talley is as a person. His fight for the family is kind-of sweet, and that mostly comes through in the form of dialogue with Tommy Smith (Jimmy Bennett), who is inside the house and manages to call Talley.
Tommy is annoying at times, but I think that’s to be expected for the situation these kids find themselves in. His sister, Jennifer, is almost worse; not that she’s super annoying, but her edgy, rebellious teenage daughter act grows tired rather quickly.
At 113 minutes, I think this film would be better just taking out all the mafia aspects because I think it makes it bloated and complicated, and if this were just a straightforward home invasion, I think it would be better because that’s the aspect director Florent-Emilio Siri handles best. That extra layer with Talley’s family being kidnapped just makes the film’s pacing feel uneven. Still, this is a favourite because I’ve always found the hostage situation and home invasion aspects to be thrilling.
The initial home invasion and what happens from there is intense and violent. The film’s violence is one of the reasons this film has always stuck with me, as there are some sequences that are quite memorable. However, the core reason this film has always stuck with me is for one actor: Ben Foster.
This must have been the first time I ever saw Ben Foster in a film and his portrayal of Mars is chilling at times. He’s the reason the situation escalates and the reason that the brothers Dennis and Kevin are in way over their heads. Dennis tries to control the situation by talking to Talley outside of the house and lays out what they want to get out of this situation, but Mars is always the one in the background who simply wants carnage. I’m not trying to ruin the film, but Foster is just really strong here, and he plays the creepy, obsessive character really well; since he’s attracted Jennifer Smith (Michelle Horn), there’s an uncomfortable aspect there of obsession that thankfully is never taken too far.
However, the direction screenwriter Doug Richardson takes this character freaked me out when I saw this as a young teen, because there’s some imagery here and sequences that really make this feel like a horror flick for parts of it. And in “Hostage,” it’s fun to see Bruce Willis do his thing as the action hero, but it’s Mars and the unpredictability he brings to this story that makes this one worth it.
