Hostage

Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis) was once considered a celebrated LAPD negotiation expert. Hostages killed: Zero. Self-confidence: Infinite. However, after Jeff is partly responsible for the death of a young kidnapped boy and his mother, the former elite cop moves with his family from L.A. to a small town to take it easy as a provincial sheriff. The peace and quiet comes to an end when three young criminals break into the high-security house of a wealthy accountant to steal his fancy Cadillac. When the alarm system goes off, the house becomes a concrete trap with no way in or out, whereupon the burglars take the two children hostage. Now it's time to de-escalate the situation. Which is actually Jeff's specialty, if it weren't for the double burden of having to protect his own family at the same time. While he is still on the job, other criminals have taken control of his wife and daughter and demand that Jeff get something out of the house of the dubious accountant involved in dirty financial transactions. Sacrificing someone else's family to save your own? Florent-Emilio Siri's film adaptation of Robert Crais' novel of the same name raises moral questions alongside its highly suspenseful plot of a double hostage-taking. The result is an action thriller, somewhere between "Panic Room" and "Die Hard", which, despite being overloaded in places, scores points with its main character who has been shaken by a trauma and shakes it off. Action star Bruce Willis in lone wolf mode against threats from all sides is the undisputed top dog of the genre anyway.