Russell Crowe stars as Terry Thorne, a K&R (kidnap and rescue) expert called in by the wife of an American engineer (played by Meg Ryan) when her husband is kidnapped in South America.
When an American oil company engineer is kidnapped by South American guerrillas and held for ransom, his wife enlists the help of a professional hostage negotiator to get him released.
This overlong film makes do with being passable, when it might have been something much more, particularly given the star power of Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan in front of the camera and Taylor Hackford and Tony Gilroy behind. It might have said some important things about the plight of poor people under brutal dictatorships, about the morality of multi-nationals operating in underdeveloped countries; it might have made the guerrillas three-dimensional so that we are forced to engage with their plight and care about their fate... if only it took a break occasionally from confrontations, brutality, and endless tedious 'macho' mouthing off - and that's just the women. You have to laugh when hostage expert Crowe, constructing his 'profile' of the kidnapper, taps into his laptop something like, 'Traits: profanity'. Wow, that really narrows it down.
And yet it does have a surprisingly 'mature' and ambiguous ending following a startlingly visceral action set-piece. Surprisingly, despite the mutual attraction, Ryan and Crowe have not slept together and at the end she opts to go off with her husband, leaving battle-weary Crowe (who has just rescued said husband) to wistfully stare after her disappearing car... Personally I think she was right as David Morse seems to have far more going for him than the moody Crowe. But we're not sure whether she loves him, she loves both of them, she will leave hubby etc, although it seems pretty clear that Crowe loves her... As he stares a song by Van Morrison starts up. We're thinking, why? Why this song, which seems so out of place?
The end credits are long and, remarkably, do not scroll but are title-cards against moving landscapes (I doubt they survive on TV screenings) but finally the list of songs arrives and we learn the title of this particular one... Are you ready for this? It's 'I'll Be Your Lover, Too'. Oh yes indeedy. So, at this point, did the producer, the director, the editor, and every other responsible adult on the production check out, deciding that's it, story over, let's hand this puppy over to some junior-advertising-copywriter-cum-DVD-menu-designer to finish it off? Was said individual, racking his brains to find some poignant and apposite song, struck by a brainwave: there's a song called 'I'll Be Your Lover, Too'? It doesn't fit the film, it doesn't fit the mood, in fact it makes no sense whatsoever in the context, but hey the title is spot on and Van Morrison is way cool. Genius! Thus, in the blink of an eye, is pathos usurped by bathos.
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Peter Bowman (David Morse) is an American engineer kidnapped by guerillas while working in Latin America. His wife Alice (Meg Ryan) is unable to raise the requested $5m in ransom money and turns to hostage retrieval expert Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe) for help. Terry tries to negotiate a lower price with the guerrillas, but also finds himself falling for Alice; then, when information about Peter's location filters through, Terry decides it is time to mount an armed rescue mission.A. Confidential'.
Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play An engineer working for a mining company is kidnapped by guerillas in South America. Thorne is sent in by the insurance company acting on behalf of the mining company; an expert in negotiating for the release of kidnapped westerners. However after optimistically calming the fears of the distressed Mrs Bowman and her sister-in-law, he is pulled out because of an unpaid 'insurance contract'. With a change of heart Thorne decides to take the case on his own time and returns to find Mrs Bowman making preparations to pay a large ransom demand...
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