One more DVD watched, for the first time in a long time, on its way out of my house. I used to really like "The Negotiator" and watched it quite a bit. There's a great big dollop of uncomfortableness watching the film now though, but it still has a great cast and a good story.
Hostage negotiator Danny Roman (Samuel L Jackson) is arrested for the murder of his former partner, who had recently disclosed to Roman that members of their unit were embezzling money from the disability fund. In a desperate bid to clear his name, Roman takes Internal Affairs detective Terence Niebaum (J T Walsh), commanding officer Grant Frost (Ron Rifkin), Neibaum's assistant Maggie (Siobhan Fallon) and a con man Rudy Timmons (Paul Giamatti) hostage at the I. A's downtown office complex. As Roman attempts to find out what Internal Affairs knew about the embezzlement, he asks for colleague Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey) to negotiate on behalf of the police.
Obviously, there's a big Kevin Spacey sized issue with so many top films from the late 90's and early 2000's and I write this review in the week another documentary of allegations about his behaviour has been released. This is Jackson's film, but Spacey is definitely the second lead and is in the film an awful lot. Your tolerance for this may vary but, for me, I can't look at him in a film anymore without automatically thinking about the allegations instead of whatever he was doing in the film.
The rest of the cast is amazing though, it's a who's who of character actors from the time. I've not yet mentioned John Spencer, David Morse, Paul Guilfoyle, Regina Taylor, Michael Cudlitz, Nestor Serrano and Dean Norris all of whom are here and all of whom are great. This was one of J T Walsh's final films, before his death and the film is dedicated to him.
I was surprised to learn that the film was a financial failure, as it was quite popular at the time, and I remember it being well reviewed. Provided you leave enough time between viewings to forget who is actually behind the embezzlement then I think the story is good and this is an engaging grown up thriller.
Hostage negotiator Danny Roman (Samuel L Jackson) is arrested for the murder of his former partner, who had recently disclosed to Roman that members of their unit were embezzling money from the disability fund. In a desperate bid to clear his name, Roman takes Internal Affairs detective Terence Niebaum (J T Walsh), commanding officer Grant Frost (Ron Rifkin), Neibaum's assistant Maggie (Siobhan Fallon) and a con man Rudy Timmons (Paul Giamatti) hostage at the I. A's downtown office complex. As Roman attempts to find out what Internal Affairs knew about the embezzlement, he asks for colleague Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey) to negotiate on behalf of the police.
Obviously, there's a big Kevin Spacey sized issue with so many top films from the late 90's and early 2000's and I write this review in the week another documentary of allegations about his behaviour has been released. This is Jackson's film, but Spacey is definitely the second lead and is in the film an awful lot. Your tolerance for this may vary but, for me, I can't look at him in a film anymore without automatically thinking about the allegations instead of whatever he was doing in the film.
The rest of the cast is amazing though, it's a who's who of character actors from the time. I've not yet mentioned John Spencer, David Morse, Paul Guilfoyle, Regina Taylor, Michael Cudlitz, Nestor Serrano and Dean Norris all of whom are here and all of whom are great. This was one of J T Walsh's final films, before his death and the film is dedicated to him.
I was surprised to learn that the film was a financial failure, as it was quite popular at the time, and I remember it being well reviewed. Provided you leave enough time between viewings to forget who is actually behind the embezzlement then I think the story is good and this is an engaging grown up thriller.