Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

jimbo-53-186511 When a family (father and 2 children) are taken hostage by 3 men it's down to officer Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis) and his team to step in and try to rescue the family from this terrifying ordeal. An already tricky situation for Talley is made worse when he learns that the father is working for some criminals who are after a special disc that he has in his house. This 'other' gang kidnap Talley's wife and child and threaten to kill them both unless Talley is able to recover the disc for them. Talley now has the unenviable task of trying to appease his family's kidnappers whilst also trying to rescue the 'kidnapped' family.Hostage is a film based on a novel by Robert Crais and the screenplay has been adapted by Doug Richardson. I've no idea what the novel is like, but Richardson's screenplay throws up so many unlikely scenarios that it quickly becomes hard to take any of it seriously. Here are a few things that I noticed.....1) Before the 3 youths kidnap the family they discuss stealing the father's car and this seems to be their intention when they enter the property. Once in the property, they decide (for whatever reason) to kidnap the family, even though they had no real reason to??? If all they wanted was the car then why didn't they just make the father hand over the keys and drive off with the vehicle??? This whole scenario just made no sense to me.2) The 3 youths follow the family home and wait outside their home before they decide to try to gain entry. The house has CCTV all over the place and has numerous panic switches (which to me suggests that the father is security conscious and for good reason). Yet the 3 youths seem to be able to gain access to the property without any trouble. How exactly did they get in? Was the front door unlocked? This again seems ridiculous. Silly plot contrivances such as these will always drag a film down no matter how exciting or fast-paced they are.Despite some of these issues The Hostage is a film that pretty much does 'exactly what it says on the tin'. It moves relatively fast over its 105 minute running time and proves to be a thrilling enough experience. There aren't really any surprises in store but director Florent-Emilio Siri provides enough action,claustrophobia and nicely framed set-pieces to compensate for the predictable screenplay. I also liked the comic book style opening credits even though I'm not quite sure why opening credits of this type were used when the source novel was not a comic?? The performances are mostly what you'd expect here; Bruce Willis is good but this is the sort of thing that he can do in his sleep. I also noticed that Bruce Willis' real-life daughter was in the film and I'm assuming that his presence in this film was the only reason that she was included in the film as she was barely in it and contributed very little (apart from having a tantrum at the start). The standout performance for me was that of Ben Foster whose quirky and creepy character made the film that little bit more interesting. It's a pity that his character wasn't developed all that well - I thought initially that a Stockholm Syndrome was developing between his character and the daughter, but it never played out in this manner which is a shame as again this probably would have made it a stronger film. The supporting performers were OK, but for me it was Foster that made the biggest impression.Hostage is another in a long line of 'switch off your brain' action thrillers and if you're prepared to do just that and go with the flow then there is certainly plenty to enjoy here.

chrislef21 A year after a hostage situation, which sees a man holding his wife and son at gunpoint goes tragically wrong, former L.A. negotiator Jeff Talley (played brilliantly by Bruce Willis) is now chief of police at a small town in California. However it's not long before his previous skills are called upon. Three teenagers set out to rob wealthy businessman Walter Smith, but events take a turn for the worse when a local police officer is shot dead by one of the boys, as she arrives at the house in response to the silent alarm, triggered by Smith's young son Tommy. Traumatized by the death of his officer, Talley leaves the case to the Sheriff's department and heads for home. Soon enough though he is back at the scene though as, unbeknownst to all involved the now unconscious Smith, embroiled in money-laundering for a crime syndicate, had encrypted bank details to a DVD, and eager to retrieve it and having seen Talley on the news, they kidnap his wife and daughter and insist on him re-taking charge. The tension mounts throughout the movie as things inside the house go from bad to worse, and Talley is not only fighting to save the hostages, but the lives of his wife and daughter too. Bruce Willis is on top form in this great action thriller, and there are some remarkable performances from the rest of the cast too, especially Jonathan Tucker as 'Dennis', and young Jimmy Bennett as 'Tommy Smith'. Ben Foster is outstanding as 'Mars' one of the teenage boys, who is far more psychotic than even his associates realise. This is a terrific movie and manages to keep the pace going throughout.

Mr-Fusion I guess if you're going to adapt a Robert Crais novel, at least it's not one of the Elvis Cole books. Especially if you're just going to make a cheap Bruce Willis actioner out of it. They even cash in on the guy's "Sin City" success with those awful opening credits (completely disparate from the rest of the movie, it's actually kinda funny). And the occasionally Batman score isn't helping matters. To its credit, it does have Ben Foster, plying his usual unhinged shtick (it works) and Kevin Pollack does seem well-suited for a mob accountant.It's not a bad movie, but it is rather brain-dead. 5/10

novaman100 This movie was the most riveting of his. I purchased the DVD a month ago for the bargain at Wmart being an older movie now in December 2013. You could not fall asleep as tired as I was. This movie is edge of the seat throughout. I cannot believe this is not higher than 3 out of 5 stars overall. I gave it 10 stars for this. Admit it is a little high on some fake dynamics/theatrics, but was a movie one can watch 10 times over. Such as when one of the characters(Mars) burns himself to death with a Molotov Cocktail was just a little unrealistic but is good for cinema. This movie could easily be a true story based type plot without the higher end drama scenes. It was very high on realism otherwise and shows the immaturity of the younger would be car thief's who screw up their day because of poor/rash decisions.