David Morse is an engineer captured and held hostage for ransom by a corrupt group of revolutionaries in the fictional South American country of Tecada or Tecate or San Placebo or someplace. Morse is taken to a remote camp where a few other captives are being held for the same purpose. Man, are these revolutionaries a bunch of barbaric slobs. They lock Morse up in a hut made of reeds and give him a rubber boot saying, "Here ees your toilet." They use the most foul language. They booze it up and smoke dope, and if they take a dislike to you they give you a taste of the old bastinado. On top of that, the weather on this mountaintop is lousy -- cold and wet. After a while it all began to remind me of my marriage.
Back at the ranch, Morse's anguished wife, Meg Ryan, is at a loss for what to do. There is a call for ransom and, after a few skirmishes with the local negotiating team, which seems about as corrupt as the revolutionaries, there appears a business-like and knowledgeable professional hostage rescuer in the form of Russell Crowe, he of the mighty latissimus dorsi, along with half a dozen of his buddies led by David Caruso. They're a sensitive but macho bunch. They address each other as ladies in the local saloons.
Interesting and convincing material on negotiating with bandits follows. It's a little like a course in Hostage Negotiations 101. While the movie stays on this course, it's informative and pretty good.
The months pass by as Crowe and the rebels haggle over the price for Morse's life. Many viewers might find this aggravating, especially Americans. We are a "can do" nation, not a "can wait" nation. "If you're gonna do it, then do it now." Mercifully, and to their commercial advantage, the writers scarcely have Morse penned up in that airy hut before there's a cut to a title: DAY 44. See, that way you don't have to wait. Let Meg Ryan do the waiting.
In the end, it develops that Morse already knows too much about the coca crops and the organization of the bandidos and all that, so there's no way they're going to let him out alive. The money no longer matters. This precipitates a raid by Crowe and Caruso and their half dozen compañeros. They follow the usual routine, dressing in camos and greasing up their faces with black and olive drab paint that doesn't do a THING for them. And there is the ritual laying out of weapons, two smoke grenades, two stun grenades, and two HE. The assault by helicopter.
Now, these half dozen highly trained pros are up against a hundred well armed and slightly insane dudes. But what's that to Crowe and his gang? All it means is a higher body count. (Cf., the raid on the camp in "Predator".) The climax is a guignol scene in which none of our guys misses and all the bad guys do nothing BUT miss. None of the rescuers dies, the hostages are rescued, Morse goes back to his wife, their marriage renewed, and Crowe leaves her behind in a gentlemanly way although he's fallen for her. And who wouldn't? She's cute as hell. She looks like the girl in your high school class that all the boys dreamed about before they went to sleep. Not the sultry slut but the virginal cheerleader. Her troublingly blue eyes have circumferences of black. The actors playing the rebels put in as good a performance as anyone else in the film. There's an unexploited pool of talent for you. They have actors, we have Keanu Reeves.
I kind of enjoyed it. The location photography is magnificent and the characterizations convincing. The confrontation between Crowe and the local team of corrupt negotiators is as tense as any other scene in the movie. It was also a good idea to individuate the bandidos. They're not all scuzz bags. There's a more or less helpless young woman who scolds the men for their rudeness, and there's a younger rebel who isn't entirely unfeeling.
Back at the ranch, Morse's anguished wife, Meg Ryan, is at a loss for what to do. There is a call for ransom and, after a few skirmishes with the local negotiating team, which seems about as corrupt as the revolutionaries, there appears a business-like and knowledgeable professional hostage rescuer in the form of Russell Crowe, he of the mighty latissimus dorsi, along with half a dozen of his buddies led by David Caruso. They're a sensitive but macho bunch. They address each other as ladies in the local saloons.
Interesting and convincing material on negotiating with bandits follows. It's a little like a course in Hostage Negotiations 101. While the movie stays on this course, it's informative and pretty good.
The months pass by as Crowe and the rebels haggle over the price for Morse's life. Many viewers might find this aggravating, especially Americans. We are a "can do" nation, not a "can wait" nation. "If you're gonna do it, then do it now." Mercifully, and to their commercial advantage, the writers scarcely have Morse penned up in that airy hut before there's a cut to a title: DAY 44. See, that way you don't have to wait. Let Meg Ryan do the waiting.
In the end, it develops that Morse already knows too much about the coca crops and the organization of the bandidos and all that, so there's no way they're going to let him out alive. The money no longer matters. This precipitates a raid by Crowe and Caruso and their half dozen compañeros. They follow the usual routine, dressing in camos and greasing up their faces with black and olive drab paint that doesn't do a THING for them. And there is the ritual laying out of weapons, two smoke grenades, two stun grenades, and two HE. The assault by helicopter.
Now, these half dozen highly trained pros are up against a hundred well armed and slightly insane dudes. But what's that to Crowe and his gang? All it means is a higher body count. (Cf., the raid on the camp in "Predator".) The climax is a guignol scene in which none of our guys misses and all the bad guys do nothing BUT miss. None of the rescuers dies, the hostages are rescued, Morse goes back to his wife, their marriage renewed, and Crowe leaves her behind in a gentlemanly way although he's fallen for her. And who wouldn't? She's cute as hell. She looks like the girl in your high school class that all the boys dreamed about before they went to sleep. Not the sultry slut but the virginal cheerleader. Her troublingly blue eyes have circumferences of black. The actors playing the rebels put in as good a performance as anyone else in the film. There's an unexploited pool of talent for you. They have actors, we have Keanu Reeves.
I kind of enjoyed it. The location photography is magnificent and the characterizations convincing. The confrontation between Crowe and the local team of corrupt negotiators is as tense as any other scene in the movie. It was also a good idea to individuate the bandidos. They're not all scuzz bags. There's a more or less helpless young woman who scolds the men for their rudeness, and there's a younger rebel who isn't entirely unfeeling.