Bruce Willis 2005 film HOSTAGE is 20 years old today. Yes, we are also old as f*ck. Before you start jabbing your goddamn fingers into your phone to yell at me this isn’t a HOSTAGE movie you shut your mouth while you’re talking to me. What?
We’ll talk about exactly why this is not only a great, underrated, if not flawed Bruce Willis performance and film. But first, let me explain what the film is on its surface:
Bruce Willis plays hostage negotiator Jeff Talley who experiences a tragic and horrific event involving a the murder of a small boy and his mother by a man he could have stopped earlier but was trying to keep alive. It totally breaks him as a person and causes issues with his wife and daughter. Eventually he moves to a small town to become a weary Sheriff because of his PTSD of the whole thing.
Fast forward to a few scary twenty somethings hanging out like the goddamn Strangers in their truck. A rich girl tells them to fuck off after the guy from TCM 2003 makes blowjob face at her and its enough for them to follow them home to their James Bond bad guy mansion. There, the three do home invasion together on her, her dad Kevin Pollak, and this scruffy little kid here. I will MOSTLY leave the plot here as what comes next is part of the fun of the first time experience. But there’s a lot more than seems happening here. It’s a wild plot.
THE CINEMATOGRAPHY
So, why is this a horror film? For starters, it has a VERY specific look and feel to it that fits the vibe of mid-2000s horror. A great time for horror, btdubs.
Hostage has so many horror fueled themes it’s fucking ridiculous. This movie was BEGGING to be a part of the mid 2000s UNRATED and nasty horror movement that included films like: The Last House on the Left Remake, The Hills Have Eyes Remake, The Hitcher remake, and more specifically Paul Walker’s Running Scared. The cinematography and grittiness of the whole thing SCREAMED Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes. There’s also a Hitchcock like coolness to the intro and a handful of the shots.
TOP NOTCH HOME INVASION
Then there’s the home invasion element. Our three initial assholes would have fit perfectly in a FEAR remake. In fact, one thing that goes unmentioned is just how frightening of a home invasion scene Mark Wahlberg and his goons pull off in that film. Same here. You have Jonathan Tucker and his super obnoxious annoying voice. You might remember him from literally Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003. His voice reminds me of that Eminem song that goes “I spit when I talk, I’ll fuck anything that walks”. You have his teenage brother who does nothing but walk around and whine the entire time and finally, you have this dude named fucking MARS who is played by Ben Foster if he were a member of the Lone Rangers from Airheads but actually an insanely deranged serial killing lunatic.
These three are hit or miss in the corniness to frightening ratio but it works for the whole teen angst angle, anyway. There are eye rolling moments when it comes to MARS for sure but there are also some legitimately frightening ones when he goes all Jake Gyllenhaal from Prisoners. HOSTAGE is a legitimately great home invasion film that includes some Panic Room elements. Kevin Pollak is rich as fuck so his house does cool defense system shit. The kind of shit that leads Bruce Willis’ character to say things like “Fuckin’ rich people” in a great John McClane kind of way.
THE MEANNESS, CHARLES
Another way Hostage is begging to become a gritty High Tension kind of film is in the way it treats human beings. From the tragic opening of the film, you are very much so in a state of shock. They show this dead kid and don’t shy away from the violence he incurred whatsoever. This leads to a visceral reaction from Bruce Willis in one of the most go for it roles you’ll ever see him in. His emotional performance in this film is extremely underappreciated. The entire running time he is a barely in control of himself, manic under the surface, ready to explode ball of emotional energy. It’s cool to see him go for it like that.
But there are multiple death scenes in the film that are extremely mean, slow motion, watch the light leave this innocent person’s eyes type shit that they don’t do in action films. And you could EASILY see a studio wanting to make this story PG-13 but it is anything but. Just to give you an example at one point they kill the main characters dog and the film just hoe-hum throws that shit in. He arrives home “Oh Jesus!” the family dog is just laying there murdered. And the film moves on. It’s fucked up like that. Certaintly is meaner than anything Blumhouse has put out in recent memory.
ANOTHER ASPECT
There’s another aspect of the villains I won’t get into detail about here but it involves another villain who is equally frightening in a kind of COLLECTOR type way. His voice is literally Roger Jackson esque on the phone and his face is equally frightening. If you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about. But again whether it’s MARS creepy serial killer, obsessed with fire energy or this guys slasher-esque vibes. There’s horror in the villains.
So, there you have it. Hostage isn’t just a home invasion horror film, it’s a brutal murder film with a handful of psychological horror moments to dole out as well. They just don’t make em like this anymore. That’s not to say the film is perfect. A LITTLE less convolution in the plot and twists would have made the film a little more plausible and believable. Not to mention cut out a few needed minutes from the running time. But it is absolutely a recommendation from us to you fans of mid-2000s cinema that includes dark films like again: The Last House on the Left Remake or Running Scared, specifically. And those of you looking for a great, underrated Bruce Willis performance. It’s kind of like if Die Hard were a gritty mid-2000s horror film. What’s not to like about that?
Speaking of the greatness of Bruce Willis, here’s an OLD ASS video of young J and I having a blast unboxing the original Die Hard bluray collection:
