Hostage

Bruce Willis does his avuncular Bruce Willis act in this standard crime drama, which succeeds in entertaining, if not in being original. Basically an old-fashioned B-movie, Hostage is about a hostage situation that is complicated by the fact that the hostage negotiator’s family is also being held hostage. It’s two hostage situations for the price of one! On the upside, there’s Kevin Pollak as an evil accountant (I realize that "evil accountant" is either redundant or oxymoronic, but whatever) and the pulchritudinous Michelle Horn as his tight-T-shirt-wearing daughter. On the downside, there are some hard-to-believe story elements and one too many plot twists. Whatever; this is precisely the kind of film that you don’t mind watching on cable when you have a cold. If you’re the sort of person who enjoys paying movie-ticket prices to see such fare, well, God bless you, really.