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'Hostage': Shoot 'em up till your head hurts

From the "Everything I Know I Learned From Bruce Willis Movies" Department: Even if you screw up a hostage standoff in Los Angeles, do not move to a sleepy town like Bristo Camino. The risks, bloodshed and body count will only get worse.

Not coincidentally, the movie Hostage starts off promisingly enough, with a tense predicament in which hot-shot chief hostage negotiator Jeff Talley (Willis) miscalculates, and a mother and son are killed as a result. Talley soon has a chance to redeem himself with another hostage situation, but the movie only gets worse.

Miramax Films 'Hostage' C The verdict: Willis goes macho with a thin, tangled plot. Director: Florent Emilio Siri Starring: Bruce Willis, Jimmy Bennett, Jimmy Pinchak, Jonathan Tucker, Ben Foster Run time: 102 minutes Release date: March 11, 2005 Rating: R for strong graphic violence, profanity and some drug use See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer   -- Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Hostage":   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

It is directed by Frenchman Florent Siri, who made the stylish action thriller The Nest a few years ago. In his first Hollywood effort, he shows a fluid mastery of the camera, which glides over the California terrain and darts about the mansion fortress where young thugs are holding mob accountant Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak) and his two children.

If style were all it took, Hostage would emerge triumphant, but movies are known to also need a screenplay to sustain our interest. While Willis and his production company understandably gave that assignment to Doug Richardson (Die Hard 2), his overstuffed plot, based on the Robert Crais novel, seems so formulaic, it squanders the goodwill amassed by Siri's unexpected angles and perspectives.

One day, about a year after Talley's botched hostage save got him to move to Ventura County, a trio of joyriding toughs spots Smith in his shiny new Escalade and follows him home to steal it. But they did not figure on his underworld connections or his sophisticated security system, which can lock down the house with a touch of a button. When a policewoman responding to a silent alarm sent by Smith's resourceful son gets shot and dies, the initially reticent Talley is reeled back in to negotiate the family's release.

Wait, that's just the beginning. You see, Smith is engineering a money-laundering scheme and has burned a DVD with critical data and hidden it in a Heaven Can Wait case.

Then there is a second set of crooks, more polished and professional, who have abducted Talley's wife and daughter (Willis' own daughter Rumer). So they are hostages, while Talley is hostage to their demands as he tries to resolve the other hostage situation. It's enough to make your head hurt.

Hostage is likely to appeal to die-hard Die Hard fans, for it leads to a violent conclusion with lots of firebombs and flaming stunt men. Production designer Larry Fulton has come up with a great dream house with every amenity and a too-clean air duct system for Smith's son to crawl through. But do not get too used to it. It will be destroyed in the hostage siege.

In contrast to his low-key roles for M. Night Shyamalan, Hostage brings back the macho Willis, but the one with a sensitive side. He goes all stoical after the initial hostage incident, then gets to show anguish when his family is in mortal jeopardy. Do not expect his performance to be remembered when the acting awards are handed out at the end of the year.